Wildlife
at Lake View
Lake View is a designated County Wildlife site and we work closely with local ecologists to ensure we maximise all opportunities to encourage biodiversity and support conservation.
Supporting our wildlife
Across the grounds, nature is gently allowed to lead, with areas left to grow and flourish in their own time. Log piles, stumperies, and bat boxes support the smaller, unseen wildlife that sustains the landscape.
Badgers, foxes, muntjac, mallards, moorhens and herons are regular visitors, while beneath the quiet surface of the lake, rare pond plants, native fish and the renowned friendly carp that have lived here for generations thrive.
Read more about our approach to supporting the environment.
Visiting birds
Lake View is a haven for birds with over 30 species choosing to visit here. Look out for kingfishers, the living gemstone of the waterways, with their breathtaking flash of electric blue and fiery copper, darting over the water.
Waterfowl including coots, swans, goldeneye, teal and pochard dabble throughout the day, while a solitary heron can often be glimpsed standing sentry at the water’s edge.
Listen out closely for a reed warbler. This tiny master of the marsh is a devoted songbird which in spring weaves intricate cup-shaped nests delicately suspended between the reeds at the water’s edge.
Home to roost
Bird boxes have been installed throughout the site, and you may also spot our specially designed shelter that provides a safe place for native bat populations and visiting swifts to roost.
Bats are an important part of the ecosystem and Lake View's wildflife, helping control insects and maintain natural balance. Cambridgeshire is home to at least 12 species of bats. Given Mepal’s rural location and proximity to water, you are most likely to encounter the Common Pipistrelle, Daubenton's Bat, and the Noctule Bat.
Soaring swifts are synonymous with summer, but their numbers are nosediving, with populations down 60 per cent in the last 30 years. These birds have been around 50 million years and fly the equivalent of 8 trips to the moon and back in their lifetime. Our shelter provides the safe space they need to rest and rear their young before returning to Africa in late summer.
Log piles and stumpery
Fallen and gathered wood is left in formations throughout the site, to offer shelter and food for insects and the smaller mammals that quietly sustain the landscape. In more sheltered corners, stumperies, formed from tree roots and trunks, are carefully arranged to create safe, shaded spaces where moss, fern and wildlife flourish.
Regular visitors include hedgehogs, which are now endangered because of habitat loss, moles, rabbits and muntjac deer.
On the wing
More than 70 species of flying insects make Lake View their home, including dragonflies and moths.
Beneath the surface
The rare plant life in the lake led to the site’s designation as a valued County Wildlife Site.