Revealing local wildlife
Storey's Field and Brook Leys
Good For: Gentle Strolls. Birdwatching, Bug-hunting, Botanising.
Pros: Close to Central Cambridge, Easy Walking, Lots of Wildlife
Cons: Not much cover, Quite Exposed, Lots of People
A good way of introducing friends and children to wildlife.
About
Cambridge is steadily expanding. Usually new developments are a catastrophe for wildlife, but the Eddington development decided to help wildlife as well as build homes and make money. Making a large area of open meadow, Storey's Field, and creating a string of lakes, the Brook Leys, is about as good as it gets when it comes to green developments in this area. It provides a green corridor from the suburban gardens of Castle all the way to the start of the West Cambridgeshire Hundreds, an area of valuable bluebell oak woodland to the west of Cambridge. Now, 5 years later, the meadows are humming with life and lots of wildfowl live in the Brook Leys.
The interconnected wildlife habitats of Storey's Field and Brook Leys are perfect for a gentle stroll, and they are perfect for introducing children to the wonders of the natural world.
What Will You See?
Birds
If you are looking for birdlife, I would highly recommend going to the Brook Leys area. Funnily enough, this is one of the best places for Coot in Cambridge! Look out for a parliament of Rooks coming home to roost at the end of the day. Also regular visitors that you are likely to see are:
Kestrels
Cormorants
Reed Warblers
Little Grebes
Skylarks
Rooks
Green Woodpeckers
Great Spotted Woodpeckers
Some more unusual visitors are:
Kingfishers
Grey Herons
Little Egrets
Red Kites
Buzzards
Also, the Storey's Field area is home to lots of birdlife as well, however they may require a bit more patience. A particular interest are Stock Doves, scarcer cousins of the Woodpigeon that have set up shop just outside the Storey's Field Centre. Storey's Field is arguably the best place place to see Stock Doves in Cambridge.
As well as stock doves, you may see:
Kestrels
Meadow Pipits
Starlings
Bulfinches
Greenfinches
Barn Owls
Other Vertebrates
There is not much mammalian or reptilian interest on the site, however this may change as the site develops. If you are lucky you may see:
Foxes
Badgers
Pipistrelle Bats
Roe Deer
Grass Snake
Muntjack Deer
However, this changes with amphibians. In the boggier parts of the Brook Leys, if you look hard enough you may see a mass migration of Toadlets (baby Toads) in May and June.
Invertebrates
The flowery meadows of Storey's Field and Brook Leys are an absolutely fantastic place for invertebrates of all shapes and sizes! It has particular lepidopteran significance, harbouring many unusual species of moths and butterflies. The large amounts of Ragwort on offer attract many Cinnabar moths, their caterpillars providing a spectacle from June to August.
As well as those, on a day from April to August you are likely to see:
Marbled Whites
Brown Arguses
Mother Shiptons
Thick-legged Flower Beetles
Chrysolina Banksii
Cinnabars
Bumblebees
Fun Fact!
Brook Leys is a water recycling system; collecting drainage water and sending it to houses for things such as toilet water. This makes Brook Leys both environmentally friendly and great for the local ecology!