The Wandering Ecologist Podcast

In this bitesize episode I’m out in the field at the Wiston Estate with a team from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. They’re here to collect data as part of an exciting long-term study which, at the time of recording, has been running for 56 years. This study is the world’s longest-running scientific monitoring project measuring the impact of changing farming practices on arable flora and invertebrates. We learn how decades of data collection from a dedicated team carrying out annual suction sampling and botanical surveys, over several farms on the South Downs, are helping us better understand how nature is changing on farmland in response to agri-environment policies. Due to the sound from the suction sampler and the team’s tight schedule this is a shorter than normal episode, but I do hope you enjoy it!For more information check out this webpage: https://www.gwct.org.uk/research/long-term-monitoring/sussex-study/50-years-of-monitoring-an-agricultural-ecosystem/

In this episode we shine the spotlight on the remarkable Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, one of Britain’s rarest and most secretive woodland birds. Join us as we hammer into the details of a pioneering survey with passionate woodpecker-philes, Ken and Linda Smith, who have been deploying innovative audio recorders to find out if these small woodland birds are more widespread than we thought.Ken and Linda share field stories from years of monitoring such an elusive species and how recent breakthroughs in technology and sound analysis have been a real gamechanger for finding where lesser spots are nesting. We’ll find out why the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is so special and why it’s very difficult to find! We explore where they nest, what they feed on, and how this new approach is giving conservationists the tools to help protect these birds and their habitat for the future.

I head up to Norfolk to visit my pal Matthew Hay, at High Fen Wildland. This 292 hectare site was originally farmed for arable and daffodil growing but was too wet to farm commercially. So, in 2022 nature restoration company Nattergal purchased the site with a wonderful vision to recreate a mosaic of diverse fenland habitats, akin to how it might have looked before it was drained for farming in the 17th Century. Installing a series of sub-surface bunds to re-wet the site will boost species richness and, just as importantly, preserve the site’s peat. Peat is an enormous store of carbon and, as Matt points out, it is ‘the unsung hero of the natural world’. Historic drainage of the peat resulted in huge amounts of carbon being released so the re-wetting of the peat will help save this really important carbon store from further degradation, and also enable new peat formation in the future.Matt shares the fascinating history of the Fens, the habitats they are restoring, species reintroduction already underway and how Nattergal are harnessing natural capital investment to fund the restoration project and revive the ‘Spirit of the Fen’.

In this episode I visit my friend Paul Stevens, just down the road from home, to gawp at a fantastic set-up on his house. His sidewall is bedecked in Swift nest boxes and House Martin nest cups, providing a beautiful bird metropolis where these declining red-list birds can thrive.Paul makes these boxes and nest cups from scratch himself, drawing on his experience he has gained from working with these birds. The successes he has had at home for Swifts and House Martins has really fired up a widespread surge of interest by communities in Sussex villages and towns, and further afield, to get their birds back too. Paul has been sawing, building and nailing away in his workshop and installing boxes and nest cups all over the county and the results have been amazing.We talk about how to identify these birds, their migration, the threats they are currently facing and what we can all do to help them. We recorded at dusk so we’re surrounded by lots of wonderful sounds as the birds come into roost.

Transport yourself to the beautiful mountains of northern Spain as we visit our lovely friends Katie and Luke at their Wild Finca – an old farm they are managing through agri-wilding, creating the most wonderful diverse habitat mosaics for nature and a refuge their young family. This episode is a departure from the normal format with a long and wide-ranging discussion on how they manage the land with Asturcón ponies and Casina cattle, the importance of environmental education for local children, and the celebrations and challenges as apex predators return to the land. There was so much to talk about I have divided this episode into two parts to share it all with you. We discuss everything from pond creation to the everyday management of the livestock, we hear Grasshopper Warblers, Red-backed Shrikes, Nightjars, Field Crickets and, most importantly, Luke’s impression of an Eagle Owl. It’s worth tuning in just to hear that!This is Part 2 of 2.

Transport yourself to the beautiful mountains of northern Spain as we visit our lovely friends Katie and Luke at their Wild Finca – an old farm they are managing through agri-wilding, creating the most wonderful diverse habitat mosaics for nature and a refuge their young family. This episode is a departure from the normal format with a long and wide-ranging discussion on how they manage the land with Asturcón ponies and Casina cattle, the importance of environmental education for local children, and the celebrations and challenges as apex predators return to the land. There was so much to talk about I have divided this episode into two parts to share it all with you. We discuss everything from pond creation to the everyday management of the livestock, we hear Grasshopper Warblers, Red-backed Shrikes, Nightjars, Field Crickets and, most importantly, Luke’s impression of an Eagle Owl. It’s worth tuning in just to hear that!This is Part 1 of 2.

Join me for a bit of autumn sunshine on the beach as I meet up with inspiring conservationist Henri Brocklebank, Director of Conservation at the Sussex Wildlife Trust. In this episode we hear about an uplifting conservation story happening just beneath the waves off the Sussex coast, in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The act of understanding the value of a healthy functioning marine ecosystem has resulted in a trawling exclusion zone of over 300 square kilometres, and has kick-started the most amazing kelp forest recovery. Kelp is a humble brown algae but is a mighty ecosystem engineer as it creates habitat for a whole host of beautiful marine life, as well as offering coastal protection, nutrient cycling and climate regulation. These other-worldly underwater forests provide an incredibly biodiverse habitat for all sorts of species including seahorses, cuttlefish and even breeding stingrays! This project has been a shining example of partnership working across conservation organisations and passionate individuals, including free divers who have been instrumental in engaging people in marine conservation, capturing footage and helping collect data for the project.

Episode 5 takes us on top of the South Downs at the Wiston Estate where I join awesome entomologist, Graeme Lyons, on some invertebrate surveys. We’re looking at the benefits of having wildflower strips along the arable fields, and how having a diversity of these conservation options on the farm are providing habitat for nature alongside food production.We talk about how the complex structure in the conservation headlands, wild bird seed mixes, fallow fields and nectar & pollen mixes offers opportunities for all sorts of beetles, bugs, spiders, bees, butterflies and moths, and in turn how these go on to provide food for farmland birds rearing their young.Join us as we celebrate the tiniest of wildlife that Graeme has spent his life studying and sharing his passion for. As we sweep-net through wildflower margins and suction sample around beetle banks, Graeme explains how the conservation options that have been put in place at Wiston – from flower-rich strips and tussocky edges to unploughed corners – are helping create vital habitats. Farmland covers huge swathes of our landscape so we need to consider how nature can thrive in these areas too. Uplifting Skylark and Corn Bunting song provides the perfect summer backdrop to this episode.

Join me for episode 4 as I learn all about the return of Britain’s largest and most epic bird of prey to southern England…the White-tailed Eagle. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the launch of this podcast, at the Global Birdfair at Rutland, and I couldn’t have had a more apt guest to talk about this amazing project: Dr Tim Mackrill.Tim was a local boy captivated by Rutland Water’s Osprey reintroduction by Roy Dennis and Tim Appleton in the mid-1990’s. Inspired and mentored by these two conservationists Tim has gone on to complete a PhD in Osprey migration and works with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation on species recovery projects including Osprey translocations, and the Isle of Wight White-tailed Eagle reintroduction. We explore why this magnificent bird went extinct in the Middle Ages and why now is the right time to be bringing these apex predators back. We talk about the beginnings of the project back in 2019 and how the reintroduced birds have surprised everyone by breeding much sooner than expected, with six young successfully born in the wild to date.We also talk about the fantastic work of the Osprey Leadership Foundation to empower our next generation of conservation leaders.

Join me at Brighton’s Castle Hill National Nature Reserve for episode 3, where I’m hot on the trail of Britain’s most endangered insect: the Wart-biter Bush-cricket.They’re tricky to find so luckily I’m with my pal and brilliant entomologist, Alice Parfitt, who is leading on the species recovery programme of this impressive species through her work at Buglife and the Changing Chalk partnership.With the backdrop soundscape of Corn Buntings, Yellowhammers and Linnets we tune in to the distinctive sound of the stridulating Wart-biter, explore its complex habitat requirements and if climate-change might help or hinder conservation efforts. Plus why on earth are they called Wart-biters?! Working with partners and landowners Alice is facilitating better habitat management of the chalk grassland it inhabits and raising awareness of this fantastic insect, and all the other species that benefit from this rare habitat. We talk about the importance of arming volunteers with the skills to help monitor this species in to the future and how to conduct a survey of an insect that doesn’t want to be seen.