Greetham Valley Golf Club Bird Hides
To complement the wide range of activities we can offer at GVGC, and because of the BIRD FAIR held annually at Rutland water (no longer!), we set about building a couple of bird hides and a floating island. We mapped out a walk for our hotel guests to enjoy some of the wildlife we attract at our golf course.
The public footpath runs alongside some of our holes, where we erected the hides adjacent to the paths, and some 300 yards apart. We set out some bird feeders and put up some information posters in the hides on what to look out for.
It was amazing to see the wide variety of birds that were using our site. And obviously had been for quite some time – they just hadn’t been spotted before. The bird spotters gave us great feedback on what they had seen and the hides still create a lot of interest from our hotel guests, as well as the general public using the footpath.
The floating island was launched on to one of our lakes that is overlooked from one of our bird hides. We built this from timber we had on site, and floated it using old 25 litre containers. These were held into place with chicken wire, and then some pea gravel was added to the surface. Nothing else was added. It soon had vegetation growing on it.
It has been a nesting site for coots and moorhens.
For further information, contact Adi Porter, the course manager at Greetham Valley at adiporter1@hotmail.com
