Sutton Park NNR

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Sutton Park NNR The official page of Sutton Park. A working landscape steeped in history, covered by fantastic habitats and surrounded by city.
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Sutton Ranger Hub
Covering Sutton Coldfield, Erdington and Perry Barr Constituencies
Based at The Visitor Centre, Sutton Park National Nature Reserve
Park Road
Sutton Coldfield
Birmingham
B74 2YT A real jewel in Birmingham's crown. Delivering a sense of wilderness within an urban environment, visitors to Sutton Park can enjoy the captivating scenery, using an accessible network of paths. There are opportunities to enjoy walking, jogging,angling, nature watching, orienteering, picnic and play areas, restaurants and use bridle paths and cycling routes in the Park. Car parks are located at all the main entrances and the Park is linked to a variety of public transport routes. Sutton Park is an historic landscape that covers an area of over 2,000 acres and attracts over two million visitors every year. The Visitor Centre has displays and exhibitions based on nature conservation , information on nature trails, guided walks, and events. These activities are organised by the Sutton Park Rangers who are part of the Birmingham Parks Ranger Service. In addition, the Rangers offer a range of curriculum based activities for schools.

***** Deadly Pumpkins ***** please share as widely as you can!Over the next few weeks many of us will have pumpkins that...
17/10/2026

***** Deadly Pumpkins ***** please share as widely as you can!

Over the next few weeks many of us will have pumpkins that need to be discarded. Though kind-hearted the increasingly common practice of leaving them in parks and nature reserves for wildlife poses a very real and often fatal risk to many species including the already threatened hedgehog! At this time of the year hedgehogs are on a desperate search for a last few meals before hibernation and a discarded pumpkin often proves irresistible. Unfortunately hedgehogs, as insectivores, lack a caecum and cannot properly process vegetable matter. Eating pumpkin causes both dehydration and diarrhoea which results in weight loss that can easily lead to hedgehogs entering hibernation with not enough fat stores to survive the winter.

If you do have left over pumpkins it is far better to leave them raised up on a garden table or bird feeder for a few days to allow birds and squirrels to benefit but always remove them before they go mouldy and please never leave them anywhere within parks and nature reserves such as Sutton Park.

If you come across pumpkins, gourds, or indeed any discarded food items within the park please let the rangers know as we need to remove them as quickly as is possible as they also pose a significant and potentially fatal threat to our Exmoor ponies; thank you.

***** New Site Record *****Willow Emerald Damselfly - Chalcolestes viridis. Last week our new Birmingham Parks & Greensp...
27/09/2026

***** New Site Record *****

Willow Emerald Damselfly - Chalcolestes viridis. Last week our new Birmingham Parks & Greenspace Destination Park Manager Danny was out with a group of experts from Natural England (one of our statutory partners) viewing amongst things Little Bracebridge when a previously unrecorded damselfly landed on a leg of one of the group. Unfortunately the photograph taken at the time didn’t show an important diagnostic feature to separate it with 100% certainty from a related and similar species we have on site. Our new Ranger Support Officer, Ken, jumped into action yesterday and managed to record several pairs in the act of egg laying beneath the bark of the Alder growing around the periphery of the pool and took a number of images that included the diagnostic features needed! This is the second new species of Odonata (the family that includes damselflies and dragonflies) recorded at Little Bracebridge this year which is significant as the parks assemblage of Odonata is mentioned in its SSSI citation. Although this specific species is a relatively recent arrival to the British Isles its presence in numbers suggests that Little Bracebridge, with its cover of marginal and aquatic vegetation, and indeed the wider park, is still providing the wide and healthy mix of water types and associated plant habitats required for this group of insects to thrive!

Fire Management 🔥 As you might imagine there has always been a great deal of work to mitigate and manage the risks and i...
17/09/2026

Fire Management 🔥

As you might imagine there has always been a great deal of work to mitigate and manage the risks and impact of fire across the park and indeed on all parks sites across the city. A review is currently taking place to ensure our policies, procedures, equipment, and partnerships are up to the challenges that might come with changing weather patterns and increasing wildfire risk. With this in mind our new Senior Ranger Matthew and new Ranger Shannon took the opportunity to visit their colleagues at the Lickey Hills to take part in a joint meeting between Birmingham Parks & Greenspace and crews and senior staff from West Midlands Fire Service and Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service; a meeting held at the site of a major fire incident that took place three years ago. A very productive meeting that drew on local and regional perspectives and experiences that will feed nicely into the current review process.

14/09/2026

Over the past few months the Friends of Sutton Park Association conservation team have been working hard on a project to open up and restore a portion of Gumslade; a huge amount of work has been carried out by their wonderful team of volunteers. As part of the clearance of holly the team have been using the cut material to form windrows (woven dead hedges). Windrows help protect newly exposed soils, provide a lovely habitat for all manner of bugs and beasties, and in the park also provide an irresistible feast for our ponies who love munching the less prickly and very nutritious top leaves; turning up and quite literally grazing as the windrows are being formed!

13/09/2026

Boldmere Gate Charging Stations. Thank you to the dog walker who alerted a member of our staff early this morning of the damage caused overnight by cable theft. Both the company and the police have been informed and the residual mess will be cleaned up once their investigation is complete.

As many of you will be aware there have been some major changes across Birmingham Parks & Greenspace with new staff arri...
12/09/2026

As many of you will be aware there have been some major changes across Birmingham Parks & Greenspace with new staff arriving and new teams being set up. Some changes will take a little while longer to bear fruit as news teams and staff and machinery appear however the arrival of new staff has allowed, almost immediately, for our rangers to start running a far wider programme of events across the city. Today our new senior ranger Matthew joined our new ranger warden Al who organised and delivered an iNaturalist.org event at Handsworth Park. A massive thankyou to the Friends of Handsworth Park for hosting the session at the rejuvenated and wonderful community space at the Sons of Rest. Many species caught and many species identified!

One of our rangers noticed a Common Darter dragonfly sunning itself on one of our railway bridges this morning; a little...
11/09/2026

One of our rangers noticed a Common Darter dragonfly sunning itself on one of our railway bridges this morning; a little immobile due to the chill in the air it obliged kindly for a few up close photographs.

***** Cattle Update *****Our summer grazing period for 2026 has come to an end with the removal of the last few cows; th...
11/09/2026

***** Cattle Update *****

Our summer grazing period for 2026 has come to an end with the removal of the last few cows; this season marked 900 years of documented cattle grazing within the park! Despite the extremely dry conditions that led to the browning of most of our open grassland the wet areas across the park, fed by springs, remained lush, green, and full of growth. The cattle spent much of their time within these wet zones which is fantastic from the point of view of conservation grazing. The grazing and physical impact of cattle within these wet areas is important as it helps to keep our bog and marsh habitats open and healthy. This then benefits a vast number of associated plants and animals including many of our most protected species for which Sutton Park is an important site both at a regional and national level.

08/09/2026

***** Blue Green Algae Update *****

Having viewed the pools and streams across the park today we are pleased to say the blue green algal blooms have dispersed. The drop in temperatures and increase in rain have helped. Although the blooms have dispersed please be aware that all the usual care should be taken when near water in the park; please follow all the signed advice.

***** Site works *****Over the next few days the path running alongside Bracebridge Pool down to the “beach” will be clo...
07/09/2026

***** Site works *****

Over the next few days the path running alongside Bracebridge Pool down to the “beach” will be closed as we need to carry out some works on a few of the bridges.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Address

Visitor Centre, Park Road
Sutton Coldfield
B742YT

Telephone

+441213556370

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