12th May 2022

A Week on the Estate: Meeting Pete, Burrell’s Commended & Goslings Galore

As we celebrate the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival with regular morning and afternoon tours of the Estate, we continue to enjoy fine spring weather. Midweek brought a spell of useful rainfall and the next seven days are set dry and fair with highs of 22C and lows of 9C. Life is flourishing wherever we look, with fragrant blooms in paddocks and margins and the air rippling with birdsong.

Thanks very much to Richard Doan of Lincolnshire Birding for another encouraging bird survey at South Ormsby Estate. In one area on 7th May, he counted: 5 x red kite, 14 x whitethroat, 26 chaffinch, 2 x lesser whitethroat, 13 x yellowhammer, 10 x linnet, 6 x lapwing, 1 x marsh harrier, 9 x reed bunting and 21 x skylark.

Last December, Richard took a walk on our Railway Tavern Trail and saw fieldfares, redwings, blackbirds, yellowhammers, tree sparrows, linnets, bramblings and bullfinches in healthy numbers. This vibrant biodiversity is exactly what we’ve been working towards.

reed bunting, greylag geese & Burrell's Dry gin

Some wild birds are easy to spot without straying far from South Ormsby Hall. We hosted 500 greylag geese (Anser anser) around the lake last year. We’re now enjoying the sight of protective adults with new goslings, suggesting their population may rise in 2022. By RSPB estimates, the UK has a resident, breeding population of 46,000 pairs of greylags. When winter comes again, they’ll be competing for space with 88,000 visitors from Iceland.

At the Massingberd-Mundy Distillery, the awards keep rolling in! Burrell’s Dry has been highly commended in the ‘Traditional Gin – Over 42% ABV’ category of The Gin Guide Awards 2022. Tristan Jørgensen’s distinctive take on a classic London dry went toe-to-toe with hundreds of fine gins from more than 30 countries. For the signature gin of a new artisan distillery to impress against this level of competition is quite an achievement. Bravo, Tristan!

Lincolnshire Life Magazine has opened nominations for this year’s ‘Taste of Excellence Food and Drink Awards’. If you’ve been impressed by Tristan’s fine gins, you can click HERE to share the good news and vote for your favourite tipple in the ‘Drinks Product of the Year’ category. Your generous assistance will help us put our world-beating, sustainable Lincolnshire enterprise on the map.

We’re thoroughly enjoying the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival. If you’ve enjoyed a free tour of South Ormsby Estate, taking in our gorgeous countryside and sampling our fine produce, you’ll have met our tour guide, Pete Staves.

Pete took a break from weeding his allotment to tell us how he moved from organising theatre tours around the UK to leading estate tours in the Lincolnshire Wolds. To read Pete’s story, and for a glimpse of the wit and wisdom he brings to our tours, click HERE.

If you’ve already enjoyed a tour, it was lovely to meet you and we look forward to seeing you again. If you’ve yet to visit and you’re able to join us, click HERE to check availability and book.

If you’d like to share your opinion on anything you’ve read here, we’d love to hear from you. Just head to our Facebook page HERE and comment beneath the post that linked you to this blog. As ever, thanks for your support.

* reed bunting image courtesy of ianpreston / FlickrCC

A Week on the Estate: Meeting Pete, Burrell’s Commended & Goslings Galore

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