5 minute read

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s largest nature reserve, Helman Tor is jam packed full of wildlife treasures. As it is home to so many distinctive habitats and species, the reserve is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and part of the site is designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). These are the highest levels of protection that nature conservation sites receive in the UK.

This wild and special place was once extensively mined for tin using a process known as ‘tin streaming’. When the mining stopped in the 1960s, nature was given an opportunity to return and thrived in the varied landscape of humps, hollows, pools and ditches. The site is a fantastic example of nature bouncing back on land heavily disturbed by human activity.

Today the site has a wonderful mix of habitats and species which over the years have become increasingly rare both in Cornwall and the wider UK. The woodlands, heathlands and wetlands form a complex pattern across the site – and this is why it supports so much biodiversity!

Spring

Visit on an early morning in spring and you can lose yourself in the chorus of the birds. One of our special residents is the willow tit which lives in the wet woodlands and scrub. Sadly, since the early to mid-1970s, it is estimated that willow tit numbers across the UK dropped between 88-94% - making it the UK’s most threatened breeding bird.

Venture to the reserve in May or June and you might be lucky enough to spot the marsh fritillary butterfly. This delightful creature, which has suffered a dramatic decline, has found a home at Helman Tor and the site is one of three key areas in Cornwall where the species is consistently recorded in good numbers.

Summer

Wander around the pools and ponds in summer to see an abundance of life such as dragonflies and damselflies whizzing and flitting over the water. Here lives the dainty small red damselfly, a Nationally Scarce species associated with old tin mining sites in Cornwall. Is that a rustle in the undergrowth? Step slowly and you might spot a basking common lizard, or even an adder!

By late summer, the heathland is in full bloom and buzzing with insects. This is when the beautiful purple flowers of devil’s-bit scabious can also be seen, a superb plant for pollinators and particularly important as a food source for the caterpillars of the marsh fritillary butterfly.  

Autumn

In autumn, a walk through the woodlands reveals fungi galore! Hidden on the boughs of old hazel is the rare hazel gloves fungus, a weird and fascinating species mimicking little hands and fingers exploding out of the bark. See some nibbled hazelnuts on the ground? They could very well have been eaten by the hazel dormouse, one of our cutest woodland residents – and a protected, rare and declining small mammal.

Winter

A winter stroll through the site will reveal more secrets. This is when the lush growth of mosses, lichens and ferns are in the spotlight hanging from the boughs of trees and carpeting the ground. Winter bird visitors like woodcock and snipe seek refuge amongst the tussocky grasslands and scrub. You might even see a herd of red deer roaming out in the open, although you can guarantee they will have spotted you first!