Burrough Hill Country Park

Location/Access

Burrough Hill is a Leicestershire County Council-run Country Park c3 miles south of Melton Mowbray. The park is dominated by an Iron Age hill fort, which gives good views over the surrounding farmland to the west and south. There is a pay & display car park off the Somerby Road, 0.6 miles north-east of the village of Burrough on the Hill, at SK 76630 11498. Nearest post code: LE14 2QZ. Current charge is £2.50 per day, coins only. For opening times see https://www.leicscountryparks.org.uk/burrough-hill-country-park/

There are toilets in the car park, but these are currently closed due to Covid.

Various paths run all around the site from the car park, but these are often very muddy, especially in winter, and some of them are steep. Please keep dogs on leads at all times as there are almost always cattle and sheep roaming the site.

Habitats

Much of the site including all of the hill fort is pasture, grazed by cattle, sheep and rabbits, ideal for ground-feeding birds such as pipits and wagtails. The southern and western slopes of the hill fort have extensive areas of scrub and gorse, which attract migrants in spring and autumn, and thrushes in winter. To the north of the hill fort is the mixed woodland of Burrough Hill Covert, and to the north-east of that more scrub and large areas of gorse in the valley. The surrounding arable farmland attracts good numbers of birds, especially in the winter.

Birds

Burrough Hill is generally under-watched by birders, which is a shame, as it has the potential to be an excellent inland migration site, and has turned up several good county rarities. The toposcope at the south-west corner of the hill fort is a perfect place for visible migration watches in autumn, as birds coming from the north and east skirt round the western side of the hill, sometimes at quite low altitude. Birds are dominated by the usual ‘vismig’ species – Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Starlings and finches, but anything is possible, and surprises have included Richard’s Pipit and Lapland Bunting in late autumn.

All areas of scrub should be searched for grounded migrants in spring and autumn. Good numbers of common warblers can be found when conditions are right, and Redstarts are regular on passage in August and September. The best place to look for them is in the scrub below the toposcope, and in the scattered hawthorns at the northern end of the Country Park. There is one record of Firecrest in the scrub at the south-east corner of the hill, and this is a species which could well occur again in the future. Ring Ouzel is another species which probably occurs more frequently than the odd spring records suggest.

The bottom of the valley to the north of the hill fort still (in late 2020 at least) has the odd Willow Tit, as well as Marsh Tit, and is another good place to look for migrants. In October 2020 a Yellow-browed Warbler was found here, and, not far away in the north-east corner of Burrough Hill Covert, the county’s first Radde’s Warbler was a fantastic reward for one regular visitor. The Covert itself holds the expected tits, Nuthatches and woodpeckers, but is difficult to work for migrants due to the amount of cover.

The surrounding fields are better than average for Leicestershire. Those to the west and south of the hill regularly hold good numbers of Skylarks and Yellowhammers in winter, and might well repay regular watching with a rarer bunting one day. Another good record in this area was a juvenile Montagu’s Harrier which stayed for several days in August 2009.

Andy Mackay