Seven Sisters Country Park see resurgence of owls after nature recovery programme

The bird of prey is an incredible spectacle of nature but up until recently, seeing one of these owls would have been an extremely rare sight at the country park. The resurgence of the owls has been put down to a boom in their favourite food – the vole. It comes after rangers at Seven Sisters have worked hard over the past six months to manage the vegetation in the chalk grassland landscape. As part of a new conservation management plan, certain fields on the 280-hectare site have not been grazed by cattle, leading to longer grasses that make the perfect habitat for voles to thrive.

Laura Clapham, ranger for Seven Sisters Country Park, said: “It’s been wonderful having these short-eared owls on the country park this winter – what a beautiful creature they are. To have five of them is quite extraordinary. They migrate thousands of miles to Britain to escape the freezing cold winters of Russia and Scandinavia and it certainly seems like they’ve made themselves at home at Seven Sisters. We haven’t seen this many short-eared owls on this site for many years, so it’s really encouraging. This is nature recovery in action and it’s great to see.”

After overwintering at Seven Sisters, the owls will fly eastwards towards Scandinavia during the spring.

The South Downs National Park Authority assumed ownership and management of Seven Sisters Country Park last July with a commitment to improving biodiversity.

A small team of rangers are managing the fragile chalk grassland habitat and Sussex breed cattle are being rotated around the site. The conservation grazing by the cows helps to manage the grassland, which can have up to 45 species of plants in a single square metre.

The grazing scheme is being led by a partnership between the national park authority and Plumpton College. Peter Cousin, commercial manager for the country park, said it was ‘the first green shoots of nature recovery’.