A few years ago David (friend, and a colleague from a former life) visited the land. At the end of the tour he asked; ‘is any of this written down’. ‘No’, was my answer. From that very brief and simple exchange, ideas were hatched to write a practical manual about rewilding a relatively small parcel of land and run workshops. I spent lockdown 2020 writing the manual - helped throughout by Keggie Carew, David Burnett and Chris Nicholson. Huge thanks to this trio of helpers!
Last weekend (Saturday 21st Aug), was the culmination of all this - we ran the very first 1-day UWNR Rewilding workshop. The workshop worked and the booklet worked. This is what Jennie, who attended, said; ‘…you have clearly spent a great deal of time putting things together and really honing how it would be rolled out - the whole day was a real treat and you should consider it a major success’.
This is a big deal for UWNR and feels like an important step. After 7 years there is a compelling story to tell of how a small block of land can help support dragonflies, butterflies, roe deer, buzzards, weasels, dormice, glow-worms, barn owls, wild honey-bees, grass snakes and their kind. I can now tell that story in a very practical way, through the booklet and the workshop. What I have learnt on our 25 acres can be applied.
This is the group of lovely people who attended workshop 1:
I intend to run 2 - 4 workshops each year. The booklet can be bought separately. For more detail about both, please click below:
The other very big news from UWNR…
First this happened: Recently, working with brilliant ecologists Georgie and Gareth, we (well in fact they) discovered the only recorded, Whiskered bat maternity roost in Wiltshire. Big news for UWNR! We are not 100% sure, but think there are 8 - 10 females and 8-10 young. Just to clarify - it is highly likely to be the case that there are other Whiskered bat maternity roosts in Wiltshire, but none have been recorded before. Elated to have this breeding colony at UWNR…feels a bit special.
Then this happened: This week we ran another really fun and interesting John Muir day with the young people. We moth trapped and identified our bounty - OMG it was stupendous. We set a single trap (often we set two) and conditions overnight were beyond perfect….broken cloud, warm, windless and moonless. Early the next morning, the trap was bursting with moth-life. We had a record species count (53 species in total) and this magnificent beast the standout….an Oak Eggar:
Book Plug:
The lovely people at Little Toller books sold me this, not so long ago. One of the best books I have ever read and if bird migration is your thing, then this is a must read. Some of the newly discovered facts about avian migration are just bizarre - science stranger than crazy fiction. Like the ability of migratory birds to see magnetic fields….just a taster.
