The closest that most people get to ornithology these days is uploading their latest Tweets on Twitter but here at Croft HQ we are taking a more traditional approach – we’re twitching for real.
Many people may still have the vision of a birdwatcher scurrying around in a tiny, dingy hut somewhere near a swamp with just a set of binoculars to guide them -however Saltholme, a stunning new £7 million nature reserve snuggled in the heart of the industrialised Tees Valley close to Seal Sands, is helping to bring birdwatching straight into the 21st Century - with a little help from Croft Technology.
Set over 1,000 acres, a former industrial site has been completely transformed by the RSPB and the Teesside Environmental Trust to create Saltholme Wildlife Reserve and Discovery Park, the perfect place for anyone to enjoy the stunning wildlife which the North East has to offer.
Since its opening six months ago the RSPB’s Saltholme reserve in Teesside has welcomed a staggering 50,000 people through its doors. With three architect-designed hides to choose from, a state-of-the-art main building and visitor centre, a wildlife garden and an adventure play area, Saltholme really is the ultimate place to spot some of the most beautiful wildlife and birds around and, if you’re lucky, some of the world’s rarest ones.
While at the wildlife reserve and discovery park visitors can utilise cutting-edge technology to really help them get up close with nature. To help achieve this goal Croft Technology has installed a structured data cabling system, within the main visitor centre, which also links to the reserve’s remote hides and workshop, via a 500m 4-core rodent resistant fibre.
Through this additional link the RSPB is able to capture live images of the reserve’s visiting birds in a completely natural habitat, while visitors can watch Saltholme’s live-feed from the hides and also inside its visitor centre and cafeteria.
Through the installation of the camera, people visiting Saltholme have been able to witness some spectacular sightings which are typically quite rare to see, even in the largest of gardens let alone in busy cities. Stunning, snowy white Little Egrets feeding at pool edges and Reed Buntings feeding from the wetlands’ bird tables have been just some of the magnificent scenes on display.
Using specialist technology to help track visitors to the reserve – this time of the feathered variety – is revolutionising how people interact with nature and is helping to make the pastime of enjoying wildlife more accessible to people while challenging the existing misconceptions and stereotypes of a twitcher.
Seeing wildlife in such an environment is a wonderful attraction for both the young and the old and helps people to learn and understand more about the birds which they see everyday as well as the more uncommon species.
The wildlife reserve and discovery park is allowing visitors to get back to basics with nature in a completely different way by helping them to get as close as possible without disturbing or scaring the wildlife. Visitors now have the choice of really getting into the thick of it within the reserve’s hides or if they’d prefer to take a step back they can relax with a coffee and cake and watch the live streaming inside the visitor centre.
The success of this project is proof of the vast number of applications that state-of-the-art communications technology can have - now the live feeds and extreme close-ups that were once the preserve of Bill Oddie and the Springwatch team are within the reach of members of the North East public. We are delighted that Croft Technology's expertise has been at the heart of such a fantastic and forward-thinking community scheme.
