Log cabins Holidays and Fishing Lakes at Lower Lakes
Lower Lakes, situated close to the village of Chilton Trinity, is a secluded area with an eight acre lake at its heart.
Lower Lakes lakeside log cabins and fishing lakes – all twenty-six acres of it – is owned by a family-run business whose aim is to provide a peaceful and secure haven for those who appreciate what our countryside has to offer.
This is somewhere to enjoy the freedom of space, and to appreciate the privilege of privacy. Here you can relax, walk, watch for wildlife or fish the well-stocked lakes.
Built around the water’s edge will be a few stylishly designed, top of the range, log built holiday homes, sited to blend in with the setting and make the most of their enviable situation.
Lower Lakes, Chilton Trinity, is an ideal holiday location for birdwatchers. Situated close to the River Parrett, with three log cabins set in 26-acres of beautiful countryside surrounding two fishing lakes, it is close to Bridgwater Bay National Nature Reserve and within striking distance of the Mendips, Quantocks, Exmoor and the Somerset Levels.
The immediate environment.
There are two fishing lakes at Lower Lakes surrounded by reed beds, meadow and hedges, with the bird life you would expect in such a locality. Tits, warblers, finches and buntings come boldly to the bird table. The lodges are ideally situated so that you can view from your sitting room windows, or walk around the estate. Breeding birds include great crested grebe, Canada goose, mallard and moorhen. Mute swans are regular visitors, along with common, black-headed and herring gulls, greater and lesser black-backs, and the occasional little tern. Herons, cormorants and kingfishers are regular fisherfolk. A tufted duck seems to visit us once a year for one day.
There are comfortable walks around Chilton Trinity with nature trails, and the reserve at Sutton Ponds. The lakes were once clay pits for the brick and tile industry, but now provide a habitat for grebes, mallard, coot, sedge and reed warblers. Bitterns have also been recorded here.
Around Bridgwater
There are three open reservoirs supplying the Bridgwater area, Ashford at Charlinch, Hawkridge near Spaxton, and the largest, Durleigh, where grebes, mute swan mallard, coot and moorhen breed regularly, and occasionally teal, shoveler, pochard and tufted duck.
Another area of flooded clay pits is the private nature reserve of Screech-owl at Huntworth, south of Bridgwater, where thousands of starlings roost each winter. This is close to the Bridgwater to Taunton Canal whose banks are a home to moorhen, kingfisher, sedge and reed warblers.
Bridgwater Bay
Bridgwater Bay National Nature Reserve around the mouth of the River Parrett with its mudflats, sand banks and saltmarshes is an internationally important feeding and breeding site for waterfowl and waders. Around 190 bird species have been recorded, including many visitors that breed in the far north of Europe during the summer passing through to warmer places in Europe and North Africa for the winter. Shelduck, curlew and oystercatcher can be seen all year round, whimbrel on passage in spring and autumn, and peregrines hunt the huge flocks of wintering dunlin.
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The Brue Estuary flows into the River Parrett. Its reedy banks are home to warblers such as sedge, reed and Cetti’s. Whimbrel can be seen flying towards Steart Island on spring evenings. Roosting waders include turnstone, redshank and the occasional spotted redshank. In autumn months little stints and curlew sandpipers can often be spotted amongst flocks of Dunlin.
Rarities have included white-winged black tern, serin, wryneck and a wintering great grey shrike at Apex. Pectoral sandpiper, spotted sandpiper, laughing gull and little bittern have all been seen in the Brue Estuary.
To the north, at Burnham-on-Sea, the stretch of beach from the sea wall towards and beyond the old wooden lighthouse is bordered with sand dunes covered in Sea-buckthorn and scrub and reed beds, home to reed and sedge warblers and whitethroats. At low tide huge flocks of shelduck can be viewed here along with good numbers of waders. In the spring, easterly winds produce passages of terns and skuas, while autumn gales have brought Leach’s petrel up the Bristol Channel.
Further north the coastline from Burnham to Berrow is bordered by sand dunes stabilised with sea-buckthorn and marram grass with areas of marsh inland. During the winter months, large numbers of fieldfares, redwings and blackcaps feast on sea-buckthorn berries. Bearded tits flit through the reeds along with Cettis Warblers and Water Rails. Jack snipe and common snipe can be flushed from the marshes. Thousands of dunlin can be spotted along the shore. Wheatears arrive in the spring, followed by the more common summer warblers and hirundines. The autumn months bring waders such as ringed plover and sanderling to breed. Rarities have included a pair of breeding hoopoes (1977) and 3 common cranes (2002). Tawny pipit, wryneck, short-toed larks, Kentish plover and dotterel have been found on the beach at Berrow. The reed bed and golf course have yielded barred, melodious, aquatic and marsh warblers, penduline tit, and golden orioles over the years, and one yellow breasted bunting.
The Huntspill River Nature Reserve lies between Bridgwater and Burnham-On-Sea and runs the length of the man-made Huntspill River, from the Seaward Outfall Sluice to the Gold Corner Pumping Station. In 1954 it was incorporated as part of the Bridgwater Bay National Nature Reserve. Among the commonest birds to be found are shelduck, goosander, swans, snipe, redshank and heron.
Somerset levels and Moors
This is one of England’s largest wet meadow systems. Large numbers of waders breed here and winter flooding attracts thousands of teals, wigeons, shoveler, pintail, lapwings and golden plovers.
At Swell Wood, 11 miles east of Taunton, just off the A378 Langport Road, is the RSPB West Sedgemoor Nature Reserve with two nature trails, hides and wheelchair/pushchair access. The woodland has one of the largest heronries in the UK. Egrets also breed here.
Greylake is another RSPB reserve 5 miles east of Bridgwater off the A361 Glastonbury road between Othery and Greinton. This peaty area of low-lying land is a breeding place for snipe, lapwings, redshanks and curlews, along with other ground-nesting species such as yellow wagtails and skylarks. In winter there are large flocks of lapwings and golden plovers.
A little further afield, but still only 15 miles from Lower Lakes is the RSPB reserve of Ham Wall in the Avalon Marshes 3 miles west of Glastonbury off the A39 near Ashcott.. This wetland area is a breeding ground for bearded tits, garganeys and reed buntings, and the hope is that bitterns, which already winter here, will also breed in this habitat.
Shapwick Heath, also off the A39 Glastonbury Road is another internationally important wetland nature reserve for wintering wildfowl and waders, supporting at least 64 species of breeding birds including lapwing, grasshopper warbler, nightingale, water rail, garganey and Cetti’s warbler. Bitterns are regular visitors.
Ridges across the moors
Running roughly east-west across the moors are a number of ridges and knolls which were once the only land above water level when Somerset was literally “the land of summer”. The Polden Hills were once a stronghold for the wood lark, and red-legged partridge, woodpeckers, tree pipits. Nightingale, nuthatch, Cirl bunting and several tits, warblers and finches have nested here.
Quantock Hills
The Quantocks stretch for about 12 miles north-west to south-east, west of the Parrett flood plain, and rise to 1261 feet at Wills neck. Its heavily wooded combes consisting mainly of oak and ash provide nesting sites for woodpeckers, warblers, redstarts, tits, nuthatches and tree creepers. Pied Flycatchers have also nested. Grey Wagtails and Dippers can be seen along the streams. Conifers have been planted in many combes and these provide food for winter parties of tits, siskins, redpolls and crossbills. Above the tree line the ground is covered with heather, bracken and whortleberry bushes, home to cuckoos, skylarks, meadow and tree pipits, grasshopper warblers, whitethroats, whinchats and stonechats, and red-backed shrike. Black and red grouse have declined greatly over the last 50 years.
The coastline where the Quantocks meet the sea, when the falling tide uncovers the reefs of lias and limestone, is a feeding ground for turnstone, oystercatchers, redshank and curlew. Jackdaws and rock pipits nest on the cliffs.
Further afield the hills of Exmoor to the west and the Mendips to the north have their own distinctive character and bird life.
