Weetslade Country Park
The highest point is 95m above sea level and views are possible of the North Sea, the Cheviots and Newcastle city. Prominent on the hill top is the drillhead sculpture, a reminder of its mining past. At the foot of the slopes to the west are three developing reed beds, home to many common damselflies and dragonflies. The park lies to the north of Gosforth Park and lies on a strategic wildlife corridor.
Prestwick Carr
Prestwick Carr is a large low lying wetland area on the edge of Newcastle. The Trust manages a large portion of the wet grassland to the south of the carr area. The grassland is used by feeding waders and is being managed to encourage breeding. Barn owls and short-eared owls are occasionally seen quartering the ground (see the video below). The site has no access but can be seen from surrounding roads.
Williamston
The reserve is on the east bank of the River South Tyne, one of a sequence of about 30 shingle bars deposited along the length of the river during the last 250 years. This one was probably created in the great floods of 1771 or 1815 and last disturbed in the flood of 1903, although parts of the reserve have been flooded since. The position of the river channel is now relatively stable and the reserve has not suffered significant erosion in the last 20 years.
South Close Field
In early summer the field is a colourful display with yellow rattle covering large parts of the open grassland. Yellow rattle is a parasite on grass and helps to suppress it allowing flowering herbs to thrive. The meadow contains a mix of flora including yellow oat-grass, cowslip, bird's-foot trefoil, oxeye daisy and agrimony. There are a few areas of more rank grassland vegetation with cow parsley and dock, which get an additional cut in the year. The field is particularly good for grassland butterflies such as meadow brown and skippers.
Priestclose Wood
The site consists of mainly oak, birch and rowan but ash, holly, willow and elder also occur. Management is ongoing to control non-native and invasive tree species such as sycamore, Norway maple and beech. There are patches of wood anemone and lesser celandine in early spring, followed by greater and wood stitchwort, wood sorrel and bluebells. Later, foxgloves provide colour on the woodland floor. A variety of birds are found in the reserve including jay, treecreeper, great-spotted woodpecker and redpoll. Foxes and deer also frequent the wood.
Beltingham River Gravels
The rest of the reserve contains a mix of woodland and scrub where spikes of dune helleborine are found. In recent times, Himalayan balsam has started to dominate areas along the banks of the Tyne. This is being removed to encourage native vegetation and to prevent bank erosion. Dame's violet has also become a problem and threatens the area favoured by the helleborines.
Whitelee Moor
A large part of the reserve is rare blanket bog, which is home to a variety of plants including sphagnum mosses, cloudberry, bog asphodel and cotton grasses. The site includes blanket bog, heather moorland, rough grassland and acid grassland, with pockets of valley fen and a few calcareous habitats. Whitelee is grazed as it has been for hundreds of years, but levels of sheep and cattle are carefully controlled. Former drainage channels have been dammed to make sure the bog stays wet and over 35ha of new woodland has been planted, largely birch, rowan, willow and hazel.
West Fleetham
Long Nanny Wood is a small (1.6ha) woodland. The Long Nanny Burn runs through the centre of the site. The woodland is dominated by ash, elm and sycamore. The wet areas along the stream contain a more diverse range of species than the rest of the woodland. The burn is used by otters and the wood is used by many birds and contains a rookery. Access to the reserve is by a gate at the roadside and a permissive path leads to an old millrace on the other side of the burn. Farm Pond is a small pond in a disused limestone quarry, surrounded by scrub and rough grassland.
Linton Lane
The larger of the two pools is a subsidence pond fringed by emergent vegetation such as reedmace, with surrounding woodland and grassland. The second, eastern, pond was created as part of the site restoration and is also surrounded by pond edge vegetation and grassland. There are two wildlife watching hides, one at each of the two pools. The grassland to the east of the larger pond is grazed; the wet grassland to the west is currently ungrazed.
East Chevington
The Trust also owns farmland to the west of the ponds but this is only accessible along marked routes. The site is seen as one of the best birdwatching sites in the county with large numbers of water birds using the ponds and their margins including greylag and pink-footed geese. Skylark, stonechat and grasshopper warbler breed on the site and can often be seen around the grassland areas. Reed bunting and reed warbler use the developing reedbed areas. Marsh harriers bred here in 2009, the first recording in Northumberland for 130 years.
