Brockholes Nature Reserve has picked up a record breaking three awards last night at the North West RICS Awards at Lancashire Cricket Ground.

Brockholes Visitor Village, part of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust nature reserve, scooped the awards for Design and Innovation and Tourism and Leisure, and went on to take the prestigious title of RICS North West Awards Project of the Year 2012, which will take Brockholes through to the national RICS Awards in October in London.

RICS described Brockholes: ‘The project uses highly innovative construction techniques to realise a design that recalls ancient building traditions, blending sensitively and thoughtfully into an important wildlife habitat. The result is a new attraction that has already proved extraordinarily popular with visitors and earned widespread critical acclaim.’

Anne Selby, Lancashire Wildlife Trust CEO commented, “We were thrilled to be the first project ever to come away with three awards, the RICS awards are associated with the very best schemes the region has to offer and we will now compete at a national level. We set out to create something iconic, that would re-engage people with nature and uphold the sustainable values underpinning our organisation – we exceeded our expectations. We hope Brockholes will become a national case study for high environmental standards.”

These latest accolades means Brockholes has now received a total of 15 awards including the Visit England ‘Excellent’ Awards, the Chartered Institute of Building Services – Building of the Year 2011, the Civic Trust Special Award for Sustainability, and the CIWEM Living Wetlands Award. You can read more about our other awards here. 

We have had a great Easter weekend at Brockholes, despite the rather mixed weather! Thousands of you visited us over the Easter break and explored all that our nature reserve has to offer, including our family craft activities, Easter trail, new play area and even a climbing wall!

The fun doesn't stop there though, we still have a weekend of great activities to look forward to with our Deadly Scene Investigation activity and a Rare Breed Chickens and Ducks exhibition. Find out more here. 

Here are some loveley photos from the weekend: 

Leslie Blackwell’s image ‘Coming Home’ will take pride of place on the second page of the 2013 Brockholes calendar.

1st Place: ‘Coming Home’ by Leslie Blackwell
 

2nd Place: ‘Ice Breakers’ by Leslie Blackwell
 

3rd Place: 'Lapwings Over Ice' by Robert Landsman

Now the weather is improving we have had lots more entries into our Photography Competition. There’s still a few days left to enter the competition in March (the theme is Architecture) and in April we’re focusing on the Signs of Spring which there have certainly been plenty of at Brockholes recently.

Please send all entries to tjolly@lancswt.org.uk with an image title, your name, address and telephone number by the 5th of the next month.

Here are the entries for February:

A ‘Frosty Boardwalk’ at Brockholes Visitor Village in the winter sunshine will greet people opening our 2013 calendar.

Captured by Peter O’Malley this is the first winning image in the Brockholes Amateur Photographic Competition.

January's Winning Entry - Frosty Boardwalk by Peter O'Malley

We're asking participants to capture images at Brockholes that fit a specific theme and to submit them at the end of each month. So far visitors to Brockholes have been snapping away in their droves and the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place winners for January have just been announced.

2nd place - Village in the Reeds by James Beattie

3rd place - Morning Frost by Peter Norris

The images are being judged each month by the Preston Photographic Society and Peter’s first place entry will take pride of place on the January page on the 2013 Brockholes calendar.

Brockholes Events and Communications Manager Lorraine Cheesmur said: “There’s a host of really talented photographers that visit Brockholes regularly, so it’s great that we can celebrate their skills in this way and for other people to see their work too.

We’re only two months into the competition and we’ve had some fantastic entries so we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to produce a quality calendar that represents the contrasting sides of Brockholes throughout the year.”

The theme for March is architecture and Lorraine and the team at Brockholes are looking forward to receiving the entries. “Our distinct floating Visitor Village should provide plenty of opportunities to interpret and capture the theme in the different ways. We’re encouraging as many people to enter as possible, just send your image to tjolly@lancswt.org.uk with an image title, your name, address and telephone number by the 5th of the next month.”

Brockholes calendar for 2013 will be available to purchase in the shop on-site from December 2012. Here are all the January entries:

It's just a few days into half term and hundreds of you have already been enjoying the fantastic activities we've got on at Brockholes.

Love has certainly been in the air today, as we kicked off National Nest Box Week with a nest box making workshop, which gave people the opportunity to create homes for wildlife in their own gardens - it was so busy that it was fully booked!

We also had an activity called Wild About: The Great Crested Grebe where children and parents learnt all about about how this spectacular bird makes it home at Brockholes. They also made their very own great crested grebe hats and we were very impressed with the spectacular grebe courtship dances!

Here are a few photos from this fantastic day!

And here is a very cute video, we all had a fantastic day making Great Crested Grebe head dresses. You were all amazing, keep dancing! 

If you would like to see some real-life Great Crested Grebe dances, here is a great video.

Here's some photos of the lovely gifts that you can pick up at Brockholes.

Dragonfly summer....or is that winter?

It’s been a great summer for dragonflies at Brockholes and now, even though the season has changed, the unseasonably warm weather has meant dragonflies are still being see on the nature reserve. In the last week 15 common darter and 3 migrant hawkers have been seen together – a rare sight indeed for November.

Love a Duck

High numbers of winter ducks are visiting the reserve at the moment. More than 50 teal have been seen alongside 20 Widgeon, 6 goldeneye, up to 300 lapwings, 10 curlew, 50 gadwall, nearly 200 mallards, 75 tufted duck, 750 black-headed gulls, 16 little gulls and one particularly lovely winter visitor – a pintail!

Hazel Coppicing

Staff have been busy coppicing hazel trees. The move marks the start of a 25-year management plan for the coppicing which will see trees coppiced at different ages so that in 25 years time there will be all different stages of trees – creating a great habitat for butterflies and invertebrates.

The material that has been stripped during the coppicing is being used to make fencing.

Christmas is Coming....

We have a whole range of Yuletide activities for you to try. Why not come and see our....

Christmas Fayres: Over three weekends in December we will be holding a Christmas Fayre with over 40 stalls. Packed with local crafts, gifts and tasty treats there will also be Christmas entertainment and the children can enjoy watching a selection of festive films.

Christmas Lunches: Available between November 23rd and December 23rd our delicious lunches include four courses of mouth watering festive treats.

Christmas Party Nights: Share the magic with us at our spellbinding Christmas Party Night. On Saturday December 17th, for just £39.95 per person, you can join us for a festive extravaganza. The party begins with a warming glass of mulled wine on arrival at 6.30pm, followed by a delicious three course dinner at 7.30pm. With a live band and table entertainment too, you will be sure to have a fantastic festive celebration! Click here for more information about Christmas at Brockholes.

Wild Winter On Its Way

A sensational swirling mass of a thousand starlings has been stunning visitors to Brockholes this week.

The spectacular flock, a sure sign of winter,  has been building in numbers  and dancing through the sky before coming down to roost in the reedbeds on the reserve.

Britain gets a huge influx of starlings from Russia and northern Europe. They come here to roost in the relative warmth.

Other winter visitors that have been soaring in the skies above Brockholes recently are flocks of 30 or more Fieldfares and Redwings. Also causing a stir was a flock of 50 goldfinches.

Roe deer have also been spotted again on the reserve, often sighted in pairs.

Animal Hero

LWT Reserves Officer John Haddon was an animal hero when he rescued an injured Great Crested Grebe just outside Brockholes. He took the sickly bird to a vet who removed fishing wire and weights from its throats and then brought it back to the reserve where he released it.

BTO Survey

The British Trust for Ornithology Wetland Bird Survey was carried out at Brockholes in October and  included over 100 mallards, 20 gadwall, over 20 teal, 8 pochard, over 10 widgeon, two shoveler, 50 tufted ducks and 250 fieldfare and redwings.

Dipping Delights

Staff have finished completing the dipping platform and little dipping pool and these will be ready to be used by visitors in the next week or two.

Food fabulous Food

A very successful food festival was held at Brockholes last weekend. Over 2,300 people attended over the two days and took advantage of a veritable feast of delights including 25 stalls selling everything from honey, chocolate and cakes to bread and soup.

Pumpkin Mania

A fantastic pumpkin carving competition is taking visitors to Brockholes by storm. So far over 150 people have carved pumpkins at the reserve although only 50 have been entered into the competition so far. Entries must be in by 2pm on Stuarday and will be between 2pm and 3pm. Competitors will be divided into four categories: under 12’s, 12-15 year olds, 15-18 year olds and over 18’s.

Mammal Tracking

Over 40 people attended the mammal tracking walk this week. Excited youngsters were delighted to discover tracks from deer, fox and badgers on the reserve.

Coming Up This Week....

This weekend sees a host of spooky family activities on offer at Brockholes.Wild Families - Spooky Creatures will take place on Friday, 1pm – 3pm, and includes an afternoon of spooky creatures andstories all with a natural play element. On Saturday come and experience life in the Hansel and Gretal wood, build a witch's cottage or Hansel prison!  A fantastic family afternoon for October half term. £3 per person, families (2+2) £10. Booking Advisable. On Sunday there will be a screening of the Addams family at 2pm, priced £3 per person or £10 for families. Also this weekend is Go Batty – a range of bat related activities for all the family.

Coming Up Next Week....

On Friday, 4th November, Sheila Davies will be putting on a display of exotic wildlife photography and talking about her exciting global escapades. Tickets cost £5 including a glass of wine, tea or coffee and car parking .

We were thrilled to be awarded 'Marketing Campaign of the Year' last night at the Lancashire and Blackpool Tourism Awards. With strong competition from The Dukes in Lancaster and Pendle Walking Festival. Also in the finalists was the opening of Nickelodeon Land at the Pleasure Beach Resort in Blackpool who were highly commended in the category.

Lindsey Poole, Marketing and Communications Manager said "we are absolutely over the moon to win this award with such strong competition. The Brockholes launch campaign was delivered with a very small team on a modest budget and we strived to be as creative as possible to launch the project in a way that would bring a national spotlight both to us and to the Region."

For more information about all of the winners, click here to visit the Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board website