Feathered Friends

Posted 17/03/2026 : By: Will & Sarah Draper

Feathered friends

As our regulars know, we love our birds at Badwell Ash Holiday Lodges. We do our best to encourage them with plenty of feeders and bird boxes (we sell our own handmade boxes in our on-site shop, Tuck & Tackle!), and we have also planted 100s of shrubs and trees over the last 5 years to provide habitat and food. So it was lovely to welcome our first reed warblers back this week - incredibly for such a little bird they come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa. 

Blackcaps have also been migrating back from the Med. Our resident wrens, blackbirds, robins, blue and great tits, green woodpeckers, song thrushes, tawny and barn owls are all very much in evidence, as are the red kites and buzzards circling overhead, getting mocked by crows and rooks. Our various bat species are coming out of hibernation and skimming the lakes at dusk. Still no sign of the kingfisher, cuckoo, swallow and swift yet, but they will show up when they are ready we are sure of that! 

A top tip for our guests - download the Merlin Bird ID app to your phone before you come, you will be amazed what birds are here even if you don't see them!