Video: National Lottery players are being offered free behind the scenes tours
Free behind the scenes tours at Attenborough Nature Reserve are being offered to lottery players as a thank you for helping to raise money for their sand martin hide.
Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust are offering the tours for a week to National Lottery players whose funding helped with to build the hide – the only requirement is a purchased lottery ticket.
It’s the only hide of its kind in the UK and incorporates an artificial nesting bank made of clay pipes and breeze blocks.
The reserve was granted £350,000 in lottery funding in 2012 to build the hide and to make improvements to the site.
Volunteer at the reserve Phil Carter said: “There is now way the Wildlife Trust can have access to the funds they need to build projects like this.
“The hide cost £50,000 and without lottery funding would not have been possible.
“We had a project worth around £500,000 called ACE, Access for Community and Education, which is used for lots of activities on the reserve.
“The sand martin hide was the single biggest part of that project.”
Members of the public can go into the hide whenever but going into the nesting chambers is a one-off chance.
Mr Carter said: “Normally access in this area is restricted for obvious reasons but we are allowing people to come round and have a look.
“The sand martins would have their nests at the back of the chambers and what we will be doing is showing people this so they can see what it looks like.
“We will also show what we do during the summer to check the nests.
“It’s got that combination of being able to get behind the nest chambers and also for people to sit right in the middle of the colony only feet away from the birds and see the birds going about their activity.”
