Opening of Nature Reserve

Today I went to the opening of the new Floodplain Forest Nature Reserve in Milton Keynes as opened by Adam Henson of Countryfile fame.  

10,000 years ago the Great Ouse Valley was part of a forest inhabited by elk, red deer and wild cattle. Since 2007 The Parks Trust has transformed 48 hectares of the Great Ouse Valley near Old Wolverton into this new nature reserve. Gravel was extracted and sold and money was reinvested in the green areas in MK. Then different landscapes were created including interlinked lakes, shallow pools, scrapes, channels, gravel islands and other wetland features. Once bedded in, the landscape should look similar to how it did in the Bronze Age.

This was a favourite area for me to walk and play as a child, and it always had a variety of wildlife. There are now kingfishers, little owls, bats, herons, lapwing, common tern and redshank.  And just in time for the opening, a Great White Egret with it's black feet arrived - see Extra.