Wildwood Newsletter - October

Wildwood Newsletter - October 2019

Sat 19th October - Sun 3rd November   The spookiest time of the year is almost upon us and we're celebrating all things wicked and ghoulish at Wildwood Kent this October half-term. We have plenty of daily Halloween activities to entertain your little ones as well as our adventure play park with climbing walls, rope bridges, slides and scary drop slide PLUS we have over 50 species of native British animals from past and present in our 42 acre woodland! Daily Talks Find out more about our animals with engaging daily talks by our team of wildlife experts. 11am - Rats 12pm - Owls 1pm - Otters 2pm - Wolves 3pm - Scottish Wildcat Spider Trail Join our FREE trail around the park and track down the spiders. Enter your completed trail for the chance to win gift vouchers! FREE Crafts and Activities Daily activities will be taking place at our events building near to the entrance of the park, including: Halloween crafts and activities Meet an animal Touch tables Potion making Special Events Our resident bushcraft expert, Steve Kirk, will be running FREE events throughout the park on Tuesdays and Wednesdays over the holiday period. Tuesday 22nd October 11am - Atlatl Spear Throwing (weather permitting - at the horse paddock) 2pm - Wolf Tales (at the wolf viewing platform) 3pm - Bushcraft (behind the reptile house) Wednesday 23rd October 11am - Spider Tour 2pm - Wolf Tales (at the wolf viewing platform) 3pm - Bushcraft (behind the reptile house) Tuesday 29th October 11am - Atlatl Spear Throwing (weather permitting - at the horse paddock) 2pm - Wolf Tales (at the wolf viewing platform) Wednesday 30th October 11am - Spider Tour 2pm - Wolf Tales (at the wolf viewing platform) Bat Session Friday 25th October - 2pm Join our resident bat expert, Hazel Ryan, in our outdoor classroom to learn more about this fascinating species, before heading to our Bat Care Centre to see them flying. * All talks take place at the animals' enclosures. Talks, meet an animal and activities may vary, please check the noticeboard on entry to the park for daily details. All of our activities and events are free to paying visitors and members but spaces may be limited. Please note that from 28th October the park will be adopting winter opening times - check the homepage of the website for details.

New Black Fallow Deer   In addition to two adorable fallow deer fawns, we've taken delivery of one male and two female black fallow deer who have also joined our herd at Wildwood Kent. Typically, fallow deer have a spotted coat and a black stripe down the tail. However, fallow deer are very variable in colour and our black fallow have black shading to greyish brown throughout the year with no light-coloured tail patch or spots.  They're still young, so the difference in pelage is not immediately noticeable. As they grow older, the black shading will become more obvious.

Red Squirrel Kits   Our red squirrels have been busy this year! We have just welcomed 5 new kits to our Kent park courtesy of our breeding pair situated next to the lynx enclosure. They're all doing very well and will start exploring over the coming weeks.

Blackneck Pheasants   Seven 10 week-old blackneck pheasants have recently arrived at our Kent park. They're currently in an enclosure next to the rat barn, but will eventually be living alongside our red squirrels when mature. The blackneck pheasant was originally introduced to Britain many centuries ago and was the dominant form until the mid 1800s. Today, this bird is incredibly rare in Britain as other species, such as the ring-necked pheasant, are easier to breed for game hunting.

Fluff & Scruff Heading Into Torpor   Our brown bears, Fluff and Scruff, are now spending the coming few months in their small enclosure for their annual torpor, and we have closed the bear viewing platform for the winter. They're likely to be awake for another few weeks, but are quickly slowing down and not very active. We do miss them over the winter, but torpor is so beneficial for them that we are happy to encourage it. The boys will be back in their large enclosure in Spring, fresh and healthy from their rest.

Lynx Incoming!   Recent visitors may have noticed a new enclosure being built next to our lynx sisters, Cara and Shria. We're happy to announce that we'll soon be welcoming new lynx to Wildwood Kent. We'll let you know as soon as they arrive!

Arctic Fox Experiences   Get up close and personal with our two Arctic Foxes, Teddy and Lyra. You'll be granted exclusive access to their enclosure where you can learn all about our Arctic Foxes and will be feeding them their main meal of the day.   Click here to book now

Wolf Experiences   Wildwood Wolf Experiences are a unique opportunity to meet and learn all about Wildwood's family of six European grey wolves with exclusive behind the scenes access. Participants will learn all about this intelligent species before getting up close to our pack and feeding them through the wire of their enclosure.   Click here to book now

Thank You PTES!   A huge thank you to our friends at People's Trust for Endangered Species who have kindly donated funds for our Hazel Dormouse Breeding Programme. Their generosity has enabled us to introduce 5 new breeding enclosures at our parks in Kent and at Wildwood Escot. We'll soon be seeing baby dormice from these enclosures, which will eventually be reintroduced to British woodlands where they have previously become extinct.

Keep Your Eye Out!   BBC4's upcoming programme 'Inside The Bat Cave' features our very own bat expert Hazel Ryan, and was partly filmed at our Kent park. The programme is scheduled for broadcast on Halloween, 31st October and features Hazel highlighting the essential rescue and rehabilitation of bats undertaken at Wildwood.

Harvest Mouse Survey   It's the last Harvest Mouse survey of the season in the last year of our 5 year citizen science project. If you are interested in helping us reach our goal of surveying the whole of Kent for Harvest Mice you can attend our free “Harvest Mouse Ecology and Surveying” course at Wildwood Kent on Saturday 23rd November. The day course will give you all the background and field skills required to go out and survey your local area for Harvest Mice. Please email courses@wildwoodtrust.org to find out more.

Picture of the Month

FOLLOW US Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewildwoodtrust Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WildwoodTrust Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/thewildwoodtrust   ABOUT WILDWOOD Wildwood Trust opened in 1999 as a centre of excellence for the conservation of British wildlife, and was established as a registered charity in 2002. Wildwood is Kent's best British wildlife park. Home to over 200 native animals, past and present and set in 40 acres of beautiful ancient woodland where visitors can see bears, wolves, bison, deer, owls, foxes, red squirrels, wild boar, lynx, wild horses, badgers and beavers plus many more. As one of the leading British animal conservation charities in the UK, Wildwood Trust is dedicated to saving Britain's most threatened wildlife. Wildwood Trust have taken part in many ground-breaking conservation programmes to date, which include, saving the water vole, using wild horses to help restore Kent's most precious nature reserves, bringing the extinct European beaver back to Britain and returning the hazel dormouse & red squirrel to areas where they have been made extinct.

Wildwood Trust Herne Common Herne Bay Kent CT6 7LQ Registered Charity No: 1093702 Wildwood Kent: 01227 712 111 Wildwood Devon: 01404 822 188 info@wildwoodtrust.org