We are pleased to hear you enjoyed your visit. We are the UK's largest wetland charity - saving wetlands for people & wildlife and our profits go to conservation work. We have changed the boat safaris by removing the need to queue and having fewer people per boat while charging visitors for the guided trip instead of relying on the £1 suggested donation. We implemented these measures during COVID but they have proved popular with visitors and now the boat safari pays for itself. Pond dipping £3 is a suggested donation to cover cost of materials for our Learning Team. Pond dipping family sessions can accommodate up to 6 family members at a time. We do not provide pencils for any of our trails. Attractions that do provide writing instruments tend to charge visitors to do trails/activities while our trails are free.

Glad to hear you enjoyed your visit to Arundel Wetland Centre. We no longer hand out paper maps as we found many of these discarded on site or in the bins afterwards. We have maps around the site at main junctures on each of the finger posts directing visitors around the site. Many visitors just snap a pic of a map with their smartphones. You can also download a pdf of our map from our website. For those who want more information or plan on visiting multiple times we feel our guidebook is good value. It contains a map along with notes on the history of our site, information on the star species of our conservation efforts as well as suggestion of what birds, plants, insects and fish to look out for through each of the seasons. There is also a checklist of all the birds in our collection which live permanently onsite most of which you should have been able to see on the day except those living in our Coastal Creek exhibit which is temporarily closed.

We have had great variety of species of gulls this spring and some visitors come in at this time of year to see the large flocks moving through. We’ve had great numbers of common gulls and Mediterranean gulls this year along with a few lesser and greater black-backed gulls in the mix of black-headed gulls. Black-headed gulls have stayed to nest near the Sand martin hide in previous years but so do oyster catchers, sand martins and this year a kingfisher pair!