Beaver Trust’s newest member of the Communications team, Emily Bowen, reflects on her visit to Trentham Gardens for this spring’s stakeholder event, and her first sighting of the charismatic animals the Trust is named after.
After being given the green light in December 2022, the team at Trentham Gardens worked through all sorts of weather conditions to get the estate beaver ready; the enclosure on the Trentham Estate is the biggest in England at 186 acres, “and it certainly felt like it over the last few weeks of building it!” Carol Adams, Trentham’s Head of Horticulture and Biodiversity, told me at May’s stakeholder celebration evening.
After talks from the team at Trentham Estate and Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, we headed out at dusk for a guided walk to explore the enclosure and see if we could spot signs of beaver activity, keeping our fingers crossed that one of the family would make an appearance. Binoculars were made available for those that didn’t have any, a small demonstration of the team’s enthusiasm for making nature accessible and giving everyone a chance to connect with the beavers.
Released on the 27th of March, the beaver family quietly slid into the water and have been making themselves at home in the Grade II listed gardens ever since. “Their presence was immediately felt,” said Harvey Tweats, Trentham’s Beaver & Wildlife Ranger. “They’ve already started to coppice strands of sycamore and interestingly this family has a penchant for alder trees – a bit of an unusual choice for beavers!”
Alders take a long time to digest in beaver’s digestive systems, which means they have to eat a large amount of it to get the same amount of energy they would have from their more favoured plants like willows.
Making our way around the lake, you wouldn’t have known that any fencing was there. “We were really keen for the enclosure to not feel like one, and for everything to continue as naturally as possible for the walkers, canoers and other visitors we have here,” Carol told me. Unlike many other enclosures, a number of footpaths thread through it as well as various facilities, so the beaver family are becoming acclimatised to people and living closely side-by-side as we once did.
The gardens are already home to a wide range of wildlife and plant species which have been nurtured over many years, and walking around the lake we could spot that some trees and saplings had been given protection from potential beaver browsing. In general, the beavers are being left to forage as they wish, however, the team have taken precautions to protect certain individual trees that have historical importance or are of high value. “We’ve protected just under 100 trees at the moment, but anything that would benefit from some coppicing or has severely suffered from the impacts of grey squirrels, we’re letting the beavers use them – they’re actually saving us a job!” said Carol.
As we made our way to a reliable watching spot, warblers chattered in the reeds and Carol told the group that she’d actually seen coots and great-crested grebes bickering over who can use the beaver sticks in their nests! It’s amazing to think when that might last have happened here.
As the light faded there was some enthusiastic arm waving as our patience was rewarded by one of the adult beavers who emerged from the island – my first glimpse of nature’s engineers! As well as a thrill of joy catching my first glimpse, watching the beaver move through the water also felt profoundly natural. I felt supremely lucky, both to be watching and to be a small part of the story of beavers returning to Britain.
The bubbling sounds of excitement from the group exemplify why projects like these are so important – seeing a beaver sparks enthusiasm and curiosity and is a really powerful experience.
“This work will establish a special place for the public to engage with and learn more about them, and we’re looking forward to launching our school activity pack for children,” said Duncan Coleman, Trentham’s new Wildlife Ranger. Duncan has big plans and hopes to bring in the local community further: “I’d love for every primary school in Trent to visit the gardens – we could learn about the geography of rivers in the morning and then spend the afternoon connecting to learn more about nature.”
Trentham is a great place for the public to learn more about beavers and their role in ecosystems which is just as vital today as it was hundreds of years ago. Watching a beaver swim across the water, I felt like we’d had a glimpse into the past and, although it was the first time I’d seen beavers, it felt very natural and something that we should all get a chance to see.
It was a joy and a privilege to see an animal that hasn’t swum across waters in this area in around 400 years, and I hope that moments like these will become commonplace in Britain’s landscapes.
To learn more about Trentham Gardens and to plan your visit, visit trentham.co.uk.
To find out more about beavers and Beaver Trust’s latest work, visit the news & blogs section of this website.
