News

Very Rare Spider Found

13 July 2022

The Fen Raft Spider has recently been spotted in the Park. This spider is one of the rarest of the UK invertibrates and certainly our rarest resident spider. It is only known on 4 sites in the UK, the nearest being on the Pevensey levels, where there is a significant population.

They hunt small insects which they find by walking on the surface of slow-moving water and will occasionally take very small fish.

The one photographed was a male, but there must have been a female around too as there was a nursery web with a number of spiderlings in it. The female is the larger of the two and can have a legspan of about 7cm!

This is a very important find for the area.

Footpaths - 1 January

The valley is still flooded and all paths across the lower part of the valley are impassable, as is most of the path along the river.

Report overgrown rights of way to East Sussex and other paths to the Friends of Combe Valley.

Latest News

Waxwings

December 2023 saw a group of Waxwings visiting the Park to sample the berries. Several hundred visit Britain each winter.

New on this website

August 2023 - a set of new pages describing some of the more common flowering plants has been added to the "Wildlife" section of the site.