I am told that house martins used to be a common sight around our village. There are now only two nearby colonies that I am aware of, and one of those colonies is down to its last few nests. However, over the last few days I have been lucky enough to see a few of these lovely little birds amongst the swallows that are fattening up on the insects above some of the fields around the village prior to migrating south.
Swallows are the sleeker birds, with red faces and longer tails. House martins have shorter tails, no red, and a distinctive white patch above their tails. Swallows tend to feed closer to the ground, but sometimes the two types of bird will feed together.
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO ) reports that the UK population of house martins has decreased by 40% since 1995. They were added to the UK red list of endangered species in 2022. The decline has been worst in the south and east of England. The reasons for this decline include loss of nesting sites, increasingly unfavourable weather conditions on migration, and lack of insect food particularly in the south-east of England.
House martins build nests out of mud protected by overhanging rock or most often the eaves of houses. Unfortunately mud does not stick to plastic fascias as well as it does to brick or wood and in summers like this one mud can be very hard to find. We can help them by putting up house martin nest cups on houses close to a good supply of mud and by planting things in our gardens that attract small insects.
A group of people across Europe are learning more about the house martin and what we can do to help them. They are currently refining the advice on what makes the perfect house martin nest cup and are experimenting with call generators to attract house martins to potential nest sites. I think that we will start to see a focus on house martin conservation in the UK similar to the focus that there has been on swifts over the last few years. Like swifts, house martins give conservationists a way to engage with the public in more urban areas. You can find out more about house martins here – https://housemartinconservation.com/ or here – https://www.bto.org/learn/about-birds/birdfacts/house-martin
In this blog-post I am going to provide advice to people who want to get started in conservation volunteering. I will then look more closely at biodiversity surveying to try and establish what I need to do differently.
I have started 2026 by giving a number of talks on surveying wildlife which has given me the opportunity to reflect on what has changed in the eight years that I have been doing this. I have also been asked to provide advice to several people who are looking for conservation volunteering opportunities. I wrote about the latter in 2018 and it feels like my advice is overdue an update (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/conservation-volunteering/).
Today, my advice to anyone getting started in conservation volunteering is:
Work out what you want to achieve (your aim/purpose).
Think about: what you have a passion for; what resources you have; what the big issues are; and how these three areas intersect.
Get involved with some relevant volunteering and have fun.
Regularly revisit your purpose, the three areas and their intersection, and be prepared to change the volunteering you do.
I provide more information on each of these four pieces of advice below, starting with working out your aim / purpose.
My aim is to do things that benefit the nature and places that I love, including encouraging others to do the same (I explain this here – https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/about-this-blog/). When I first left full-time employment, I spent time working out what nature, and which places, I loved and why.
Over the last eight years I have developed a pretty clear idea of what I can do to benefit the nature and places that I love. I found it helpful to think about three intersecting sets: what issues do I have a passion for; where is there a significant need for change; and what resources do I have (skills, tools, networks, capacity etc). There is more information here – https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2021/12/11/what-should-i-do-with-my-time-4/.
Looking at this Venn diagram now, I think I need to revisit it to better reflect the conservation resources that I have acquired over the last eight years. However, the three sets and their intersections continue to help me decide who to volunteer for.
In this blog-post ((https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/conservation-volunteering/), I suggested various ways that you can find organisations to volunteer for. I now volunteer for the RSPB, the National Trust, Binfield Environment Group, Butterfly Conservation and Bracknell Forest Council. In all of these voluntary roles I am having a positive impact for some of the nature and places that I love. I have also realised that I am: learning and educating others; playing a part in building a community; making new friends; and getting fresh air and exercise. I find all of these things fun.
At a minimum of once a year I revisit my purpose, the three areas and their intersection, and whether I am continuing to have fun in the role. I have written about the importance of making sure that any volunteering role continues to be rewarding (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/conservation-volunteering-3/). In the eight years that I have been volunteering it feels like most of the organisations that I volunteer with have got better at engaging with volunteers and providing them with a rewarding experience.
I am now going to explore what I need to do differently, specifically in relation to biodiversity surveying, so feel free to stop reading if you are only interested in the section on advice on conservation volunteering.
Since the start of 2026, I have been reading about, writing about and giving talks about biodiversity surveying. I have been developing the themes that I wrote about here – https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2025/07/20/what-are-you-doing/. These themes were: have a clear purpose for each survey; select the appropriate tools to fulfil that purpose; have fun; and be prepared to change the purpose and/or tools over time. For most of the survey work that I do, transect surveying is the most appropriate tool. However, I recognise that I need to do more to use the data from these surveys to engage others to act positively for nature. In working out how to do this, I am finding the concepts of ‘actionable hope’ and ‘wild service’ (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/wild-service-trees/) helpful.
The tools and approaches to surveying biodiversity are getting better. Like in many other areas, there are a growing number of apps to help with identifying and recording nature. The more useful and useable apps are staring to emerge from this “market” and the data-flows between these apps and the systems used for regional, national and international record-keeping are improving.
It also seems to be becoming clearer how a citizen scientist can do purposeful surveying. In England, the local nature recovery strategies (LNRS) provide guidance on what habitats and species we need more information about. Where they exist, local biodiversity action plans (BAPs) translate this into things that we can all do to gather data and act on it. Where I live the LNRS and BAP highlight some data gaps that need filling. For example, we need more records on where swifts and lapwings might be nesting and we need better data on the quality of local wildlife sites.
I also want to get more people involved with surveying, especially young people. I like the idea that the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have of supporting young people to treat the BTO’s Garden Bird Watch as part of their Duke of Edinburgh awards (https://www.bto.org/our-work/youth/get-involved). I am sure that we could do something similar locally. I also think that promoting iNaturalist through campaigns like the City Nature Challenge (https://www.citynaturechallenge.org/) is a good way get more people involved.
One challenge that I have set myself is to do more this year to help with the identification of records on iNaturalist especially those in my local area. Although I am reasonably good at bird and butterfly id this might be a good way to improve my bumblebee, dragonfly and damselfly knowledge. Helping with id seems to me to be a good use of time when I am not able to get outside.
To summarise the second part of this blog-post, in 2026 I will try and make sure that the biodiversity surveying that I am involved with continues to be purposeful and fun and I will be looking for ways to engage more people in acting to gather data or to use it.
This post is my annual review of whether or not I am increasing my impact for the nature I love. It is almost eight years since I left full-time employment.
At some point in the last year I did my thousandth hour of volunteering for both the RSPB and the National Trust. I estimate that I have also done more than a thousand hours of volunteering for our parish environment group. In addition to these three, I volunteer for Bracknell Forest Council, Butterfly Conservation and Ultra Challenge.
In the last twelve months, the National Trust gave me a long-service award, Butterfly Conservation gave me a prize for being volunteer mentor of the year, I collected an award from the parish council on behalf of the environment group, I got certified to use a brush-cutter and related equipment, and I won a golf trophy. At least one of these was definitely due more to luck than talent, I’ll let you work out which one.
All of this volunteering keeps me busy, fulfilled and fit. It also continually reminds me that, despite everything, there are some decent humans in this world.
This time last year I said “… In 2025, I am going to focus on increasing the impact of my learning, educating, lobbying and funding …”. I also said that “… I want to learn more about … our rarer local butterflies … and what can be done to improve their prospects …” and that I wanted to “… keep up to date with the latest thinking on development and conservation …” (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/seven-years-on/)
Already in 2026, I have been making sure that the surveying done by all the groups that I am involved with is purposeful. Data from surveys that I have been involved with has been shared with landowners and will be used to influence land management decisions. Our data also feeds the local biodiversity action plan and environmental records centre. I am trying to find ways of sharing it with local people in an engaging way. I have given two talks, on our local nature and wildlife surveying, and have been invited to give a talk on surveying at a regional conference later in the year.
Over the next 12 months, I will be working to fill the gaps in local surveys on key species including birds and butterflies. I have so much more to learn about butterflies! I recently joined a group looking for brown hairstreak eggs in a local meadow. These rare butterflies are difficult to find when the adults are on the wing, but if you suspect that they are in an area it can be easier to find the eggs. Our search was successful and the management of the meadow will change to protect the butterfly colony. We suspect that there are more, as yet undiscovered, colonies in the area. We have already discovered something similar with purple hairstreak butterflies. This species is also rarely seen on traditional transect surveys but can be found in the canopy of some mature oak trees in out area.
One of the groups that I volunteer with is currently working hard to improve an area of heathland for silver-studded blue butterflies and heathland bird species. We will be monitoring the impact of these improvements over the next few years.
The last twelve months have been interesting in terms of development and conservation. Uncertainty has arisen from the changes that the UK’s Labour government are trying to make to planning laws which many commentators are saying may be negative for nature and may reduce the positive impact of the biodiversity net gain legislation introduced by the previous government. I am convinced that at the local level it is the lack of understanding and enforcement that is causing more harm.
One area of education that I would like to focus on is sharing with people that the presence of deer and horses is not a sign of a healthy natural environment. There are other species that are much better indicators from the hairstreak butterflies mentioned earlier to the lapwing.
The creation of a suitable alternative natural greenspace (SANG) nearby led to the destruction of an area of damp grassland used for the last few years by a pair of lapwings (a red-listed wading bird with a recognisable ‘peewit’ call and a spectacular display flight). When the plans for this field were being discussed, no records of lapwing breeding were found. In this case, it was because no-one had recorded and reported them and the ecologists surveying the field did so at a time when they weren’t present. Hence I, and others, will be trying to fill some of these survey gaps in the next 12 months.
Surveying is an example of Wild Service, a concept that I found out about last year – https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/wild-service-trees/. Along the way, I learnt a lot about the wild service tree and am looking forward to trying some recipes using the tree’s berries. This year I will be learning more about Wild Service and adopting and sharing more concepts as I strive to increase my impact, and that of other like-minded people, for the nature that we love.
One of the themes that I keep returning to in this blog is the ownership and management of land. The conservation sector currently has one of the biggest land acquisition opportunities in England in the last 30 years. The Northumberland Wildlife Trust, supported by the rest of the UK Wildlife Trusts, is trying to raise £30m by the end of September 2026 to buy the second phase of the Rothbury Estate (https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/appeals/rothbury-estate-nature-and-nation).
Forty square miles of upland, farms, woods and river valleys to the west of the Northumbrian town of Rothbury have been put up for sale by Lord Percy whose family have owned the land since the 1300s. This part of the north-east of England is truly spectacular and contains a wealth of nature and history. Nearby are Alnwick Castle, Cragside House, Bamburgh, Lindisfarne and Kielder Forest. The package of land up for sale will connect up areas owned by the National Trust, Forestry England, Northumberland Wildlife Trust and nature-friendly farmers to create a biodiverse area running from the North Sea to Kielder Forest and the Scottish Borders. There is more information about the Rothbury Estate here – https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/saving-rothbury-estate
The Wildlife Trusts secured the first parcel of land in 2024 and have put a team in place to work with other local stakeholders to manage that land. Despite this initial success, securing the second phase will not be trivial. The Wildlife Trust and their supporters have created an exciting vision for the area, see the David Attenborough video in the previous link or the FAQs at the bottom of this page – https://www.nwt.org.uk/what-we-do/projects/saving-rothbury-estate. At the time of writing, the Wildlife Trusts have raised approximately one third of the required funds. It is likely that the appeal will be boosted by various matched funding opportunities.
If the Wildlife Trusts can buy the land, they will face a significant challenge in managing it effectively for nature and people and doing this in a way that is sustainable in a changing world. One example of a change that will impact this acquisition is the UK government’s recently launched Environmental Improvement Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-improvement-plan-2025/environmental-improvement-plan-eip-2025) which despite stressing the importance of managing land for nature on this scale has reduced the funding available from central government to do this.
My wife has family connections to the area and we have enjoyed holidays there and have travelled through the Rothbury Estate. We have promised each other that we will walk on the Simonside Hills, which are part of the estate. We donated to the first appeal and are considering donating to the second.
In an earlier blog-post, I concluded that we could increase the impact of our donations by taking a portfolio approach combining small local acquisitions, donating to appropriate charities, and working with philanthropic networks (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2025/03/23/increasing-the-impact-of-my-funding/). In that blog-post, I also touched on the idea of philanthropic loans. I summarised how I will decide whether a charity is appropriate and provided links to a previous blog-post that gave more detail. Looking at the first part of the Rothbury acquisition I speculated that, working together, the Wildlife Trusts could meet my criteria.
Many environmental organisations, including some of the Wildlife Trusts, are struggling in the current economic climate. My advice to others is to donate to well-run organisations, and that well-run organisations would be able to cope with economic, social and political changes. The Wildlife Trusts are trying to address the challenges they face by working together more and boosting the capacity and capability of the network as a whole. For example, the parent organisation has been recruiting people with a proven track record of unifying organisations.
It is also my view that projects like this need a high-level plan (or theory of change). In this case, this should show how the vision for Rothbury will be delivered. There are some hints to how this might work and the structures being created to support it in the FAQs at the end of this webpage – https://www.nwt.org.uk/what-we-do/projects/saving-rothbury-estate. However, I would like to see more information.
The Wildlife Trusts will also have to manage the expectations and demands of their funders. For example, they may take funding that is dependent on their ability to meet carbon capture or biodiversity net gain targets. It will be challenging to prove these benefits on newly acquired land with little existing baseline data. If they take loans, such as the philanthropic loans mentioned earlier, then they will need to have a clear, realistic plan for how they are going to pay those loans back. There are already examples in the UK conservation sector where loan repayments are being delayed because the forecast revenue streams have not been achieved.
I was reminded of another issue while reading about the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s nature reserve on the Scottish island of Siel (Wright, 2023). This nature reserve includes an area of temperate rainforest dominated by hazel, which is particularly important for mosses and lichens. It is likely that the organisations that care about mosses and lichens would take a different approach to the management of the reserve than the Wildlife Trust takes. I have worked with conservation organisations where their internal experts have overlooked important species, or entire taxonomic groups, that are found on their nature reserves. Sometimes the larger conservation organisations fail to engage the true experts because they believe that their own staff have sufficient expertise.
It is also interesting to compare the challenges facing private land-owners and charity land-owners. A wildlife trust employee told me about being shown round a local re-wilding project by the private land-owner who said that they could make the kind of mistakes that the wildlife trust would be criticised for.
For many reasons, including those set out above, some of the larger UK conservation charities seem to be taking a more cautious approach to land acquisition than they did a generation ago. It is also unclear what the current UK government thinks the right model for managing land positively for nature is. In terms of land management, the new EIP (see above) focuses more on what needs to be achieved rather than how it is going to be achieved.
Having researched and written the above, my conclusion is that any organisation trying to acquire and manage land in the UK, on the scale of the Rothbury Estate, will face a very significant challenge. I have previously written that I want to donate to something that is: a good fit for me; a realistic solution to a problem; demonstrating a measurable positive impact; being delivered by an “excellent” organisation; and where money is the best way for me to help solve the problem (see https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/why-is-it-so-hard-to-say-thank-you/ and the blog-posts it links to). I am not yet convinced that the second phase of the Rothbury acquisition meets these criteria. I will continue to watch how the appeal develops whilst comparing it with other potential projects that we could donate to.
References
Wright, J., 2023. The Observant Walker. London: Profile Books Ltd.
(Note that this blog-post has been written for the staff and volunteers who work on Farnham Heath, Hazeley Heath and Blackbushe)
Nationally, 2025 was an average year for butterflies. Although, for many species it was a significant improvement on 2024, 2025 numbers are broadly in line with the decline in butterfly numbers that we have been seeing over the last decade or two. 2025 was a good year for gatekeepers and the whites, but despite the good weather was not great for some of the other species that are associated with the British summer.
Thanks to all of your hard work, at Hazeley and Farnham Heaths and at Blackbushe Airport, we now have better habitat for butterflies and a better understanding of where different species can be found. In 2025, we saw twenty-seven species of butterfly at Blackbushe, approximately twenty species at Farnham, and approximately thirty at Hazeley.
At Hazeley, 2025 was the best year in the last three for silver-studded blues (but only the fifth best in the last ten years). It was also nice to see silver-studded blues (SSBs) in all the transect sections where we have historically seen them. Even though we were only able to carry out a limited number of surveys at Tankersford (Farnham), it was a record breaking year for SSBs. One section of the transect in particular was spectacular.
During the summer I was asked to survey a nearby (non-RSPB) heathland site which used to be good for SSBs. The weather was not perfect for them, and I only managed to find a few. The problem with this site is that the heather is getting tall as there has been no cutting, grazing or burning in recent years.
I think that there are two conclusions that we can draw about SSBs: they prefer short heather; and it may take them more than one year to bounce back from a poor summer like 2024.
SSBs don’t go very far from the place they hatch, they don’t fly very high and they have a symbiotic relationship with two species of ants. So to spread, they need ant colonies and no tall gorse barriers. So, it will be interesting to see the impact of the gorse clearance that we are currently doing at Hazeley. Although this area is not on our transects, there is a colony of silver-studded blues and we are linking their heather patch up with other areas of low heather.
Unfortunately, 2025 seems to have been a poor year at all our sites for the other key heathland species – grayling. I have seen a theory that they don’t do well in drought years, but I’m not sure what the reason for that is. Has anyone got any ideas?
The work that we have done creating and clearing scallops on the Hazeley Bottom ride seems to have been appreciated by some of our commoner butterflies like speckled woods, brimstones and red admirals. We were hopeful that this work and the scalloping that we did, a couple of years ago, on the ride between Purdey’s Track and Wedgewood’s Track would be good for the two species of fritillary that are amongst the largest butterflies we get at Hazeley. However, they have had a couple of poor years and although there were some sightings on the South transect, there was not a big increase in numbers. Let’s hope that the summer of 2026 is good and that we can create some more suitable butterfly habitat between now and then.
I have been searching for a little-known native tree that is reputed to feed us, cure us, entertain us, indicate ancient woodland and also to be the source of a popular pub name. Read on to find out more.
The wild service tree (sorbus torminalis) is a relative of the mountain ash and is native to England and Wales. Despite pretty flowers in spring, distinctive berries in early autumn and beautiful colours in late autumn, the tree is often over-looked in woodland where larger trees over-shadow it.
Wild service berries, once they have been allowed to mature, are a sweet treat. Mabey (1998) suggests that they taste like apricots, sultanas, tamarind and over-ripe damsons. In some parts of southern England, they used to be sold in bunches to children. The berries can also be used to flavour alcohol. Mabey gives recipes for a whisky based drink and a wild service “wine”. Roper (2010) thoroughly examines drinks based on sorbus berries, including wild service berries and Harford (2025) provides links to some wild service berry recipes.
Historically, wild service tree wood has been used by both musical instrument and furniture makers (GardenersWorld.com, 2024). The tree may also have medicinal uses with Grigson (1996) suggesting that the berries were believed to settle colic and water distilled from the flower stalks was believed to be good for earache and consumption, and Harford (2025) reporting that the fruit may be both an antioxidant and a way of treating neurodegenerative disorders. Despite all the potential services that the tree provides, it is most likely that its name comes from the old English plural of sorbus.
It seems likely that there is a connection between the wild service tree and the large number of pubs called “The Chequers”. However, the exact nature of the connection is unclear. Wild service tree berries are known as chequers, which could reflect the fact that the mature fruit has a pattern on it that can look a bit like a chess board. It seems more likely that the trees were named after the pubs because a chequered board was used to advertise that they were public houses, and some of the oldest specimens of the wild service tree are now found in the gardens of old pubs (Mabey, 1998).
The wild service tree is now uncommon. The English climate is not really suitable for the trees to grow from seeds, so they tend to propagate from suckers from established trees (Rackham, 2020). They prefer well-draining clay or limestone soils, and the combination of climatic and soil preference limits them mostly to the south of England. Old woods in suitable areas have either been destroyed or managed for things other than wild service trees, leading to their decline.
Picture by Mark Lyford
My local council is one of the leading English local authorities in terms of the production and implementation of a biodiversity action plan. The wild service tree is one of the key species in that action plan as it is a good indicator of the quality of remaining patches of old woodland in our area. The council have been growing and planting wild service trees on their land and encouraging others to do the same.
I have been spending some time looking at the records, on various citizen science platforms, for the key species listed in the Bracknell Forest Council (BFC) biodiversity action plan (BAP). Some species are under-represented on these platforms, so I decided to take a closer look at data on the wild service tree. I found four local wild service tree records on iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/home) and no records on iRecord (https://irecord.org.uk/). I also discovered that, despite being one indicator species for ancient woodland, wild service trees are not recorded on the Woodland Trust’s Tree Inventory (https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/) or on the veteran tree surveys conducted locally about a decade ago.
With the help of a couple of other wild service enthusiasts we have found more than a hundred wild service trees in the northern half of Bracknell Forest and put these records into iNaturalist. Many of these trees have been planted around new developments. However, we have also found some magnificent specimens which are possibly hundreds of years old.
So, why is this important? In the words of Joni Mitchell “… you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone …”. My research suggests that we are already losing the cultural history of the wild service tree, and we are losing our understanding of its significance in our countryside. We are in danger of losing the tree itself and the habitats in which it makes its home. Alongside this we we will lose those species that use the tree for some or all of their lifecycle, such as the bullfinch and the caterpillars of the moths bucculatrix bechsteinella and phyllonorycter mespilella. Why shouldn’t we conserve the tree and the habitats in which it thrives?
Putting the larger trees into the iNaturalist database and writing this blogpost are acts of Wild Service. This concept was coined by Guy Shrubsole and Nick Hayes from the Right to Roam campaign (https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/takeaction). The underlying idea is that when exploring nature, we don’t just ‘leave no trace’ but proactively care for the environment through acts of wild service (Shrubsole, 2025). Shrubsole even suggests that the wild service tree was part of the inspiration for this concept. In an inspiring essay, Amy-Jane Beer (2024) says that Wild Service could be litter-picking, wildlife protection, citizen science, campaigning, admiring nature, foraging, and creating or performing art. She then makes a powerful statement linking these ideas to simply being in nature – “… Noticing and celebrating are aspects of service, as are guardianship, reciprocity, education, healing and homage. …”
Noticing and celebrating have always enhanced my time in nature, and I am learning to notice more than just birds and butterflies. My recent involvement in a week of nature-related events reminded me that the enthusiasm of others can be infectious and a source of joy (Reflections on Eco Week). We are planning one or more walks to celebrate the wild service tree next year, we are attempting to grow trees from seed, and if we can collect enough berries we will have a go at cooking or making a drink with them.
Our initial research suggests that many of the species in our local biodiversity action plan are under-recorded. I suspect that this is the case wherever you live. Perhaps you could do a wild service by contributing a little to the knowledge of your local nature.
At the end of August we ran our village’s first ever Eco Week, starting with a walk comparing two local greenspaces on the Saturday and ending with children’s activities in our community café on the Friday. In between we held an Eco Fair at one of the village churches and ran a series of walks and other events. We also published a nature trail encouraging people to visit green-spaces and playgrounds throughout the parish.
The event was the brainchild of one member of our local churches’ Eco Church team, and that group were the driving force behind Eco Week.
The purpose of this blogpost is to document and share my thoughts on what worked well and identify areas where I can do things differently if we do something similar next year.
We were lucky with the weather and did not have to cancel any of the outdoor events. I met many lovely people and enjoyed sharing stories about our local nature. I learnt lots, from interesting facts about our local trees to the challenges that our bats face.
More than 200 people participated in one of the events that we ran during the week, including the Eco Fair. One of our aims was to offer something to local families who might be struggling to find or afford entertainment towards the end of the school holidays. It was brilliant to see families joining in various activities at the fair together and it was also energising to meet youngsters who were genuinely interested in, and informed about, our local nature.
Together we learnt new things about nature. We discovered at least three different types of galls on our oak trees, found wild service trees (a local rarity), spotted thirty-one species of moths and seven species of butterflies. We may have discovered a damselfly not previously recorded in the area (the willow emerald damselfly). We heard and saw kingfishers, suggesting that they may have bred near our local river again this year. We shared ideas for using hedgerow fruits including a recipe for hawthorn ketchup!
For many people, the highlight of the week was the bats. We had two rescue bats at the fair which delighted young and old visitors. Our bat walk was also a success with four different species being picked up by the bat detectors we were using. The walk ended with the group stood by a pond with soprano and common pipistrelles swooping overhead and the bat detectors playing both their hunting and contact calls.
We added new members to our group, raised a small amount of money to fund for our work, and gave others the opportunity to promote their organisations. More importantly, we ran a series of events that people seemed to enjoy, that engaged them with nature, and that allowed people to meet like-minded individuals and organisations.
The events also had some interesting, unexpected benefits. Our fair was attended by people with limited mobility, we introduced some new people to Walks for Well-being, and some of our events were attended by young people. We also managed to turn an old book-case into a bug hotel.
However, the key question is, did we achieve what we set out to? The main aims of Eco Week were: to provide local families with something to do at the end of the school holidays; and to raise awareness of Binfield’s wildlife. Secondary aims included: to engage the church community in the Eco Church projects; and to raise funds for the church and the environment group.
We did get a number of families attending our events, but it felt like there could have been more. In hindsight, the week beginning bank holiday Monday might not have been the best week to choose, especially as we tried to communicate about the event through schools.
The events certainly raised awareness of nature, but only the walks and talks really focused on Binfield’s wildlife. It would be good to find a way of encouraging people to record what they see in Binfield and possibly to think about what they don’t see. I wonder if we could have promoted the use of iNaturalist during the week, perhaps emphasising the importance of recording the key species in our local biodiversity action plan.
The Eco Fair would not have run so well without the active support of members of the church community. However, the number of people from the church attending the Eco Week events was disappointing.
Funds were raised by selling tea, cakes and nature trail leaflets. We believe that more will be raised in future years now we have more experience on how to run the event. We got positive feedback about both the nature trail and the treasure trail at the Eco Fair. Although both trails were challenging, this did not stop people attempting them. It feels like we could have done more to promote them.
From a Binfield Environment Group (BEG) perspective, one thing that we learnt from this week was the importance of setting an objective for our participation and then working out how we are going to achieve that objective. In keeping with a recurring theme in my blog, that objective should relate to the positive impact that BEG and the Eco Week participants can have for Binfield’s nature and people’s enjoyment of that nature. The latest Bracknell Forest biodiversity action plan and the draft Berkshire local nature recovery strategy suggest that surveying nature and sharing that information could be part of that objective.
Footnote:
I have put together a list of all of the groups that helped make Eco Week happen here – https://binfieldeg.wixsite.com/binfieldeg/post/eco-week-links. If you want to learn more about the work of Binfield Environment Group, or our local nature then please consider joining our Facebook group or send me your email address so that I can add you to our email list.
“What are you doing?” my friend asked me. “Surveying butterflies” I replied as I put my binoculars down next to the id chart and pint of beer. “Why are you doing that?” he enquired. I waffled an unsatisfactory answer, and the conversation moved on.
Only later did I realise what a good question “Why are you doing that?” was. I was sat outside a cricket club bar with few of my old (and not so old if Zoe reads this) cricketing friends, but I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention to the game.
I could have answered “having a pint while waiting for a painted lady to go by” and then waited for a response along the lines of wouldn’t I have more luck if I went into town later at night. For the record, the painted lady was one of the common species of butterfly that had not been recorded in the map square containing the cricket club in the last 5 years. I could have explained to my friends that the data from all the volunteer surveys across the country helped produce a map of what was found where, which in turn gives people an idea where to target conservation actions. This group of friends are smart and were genuinely interested in working out whether my newish hobby was just as much a waste of time as our old one (playing cricket), so they would almost certainly have asked why common butterflies need conserving.
At about the same time, I was asked to put together some advice for people starting out on butterfly surveying. These two things got me thinking about what the real purpose of what I was doing might be and whether I was doing it in the most purposeful way. I have written before about the importance of purposeful surveying (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2022/08/20/surveying-nature-2/) and the need to join up and share information (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2024/09/05/kingfishers-and-alphabet-soup-part-3-issues-and-solutions/). Since writing those blog-posts, I have learnt more about the various systems for recording data about butterflies and have spent more time looking at some of the tools that I mentioned such as iRecord and the NBN database. I have also come across some interesting ideas from other people. So, some potential answers to my friends’ questions are below. Do you have any other ideas?
Surveying to determine whether something once common is really missing and why. A common species might appear to be less common because it is being overlooked or because its habits have changes. Alternatively, there might be a real issue. It feels important to design and conduct surveys that work out which of these is the case and what can be done about it. For example, purple hairstreak butterflies don’t often show up on transect surveys because they tend to be high up in oak trees, so a specific approach to surveying them has been developed.
Surveying because butterflies are a pretty good proxy for habitat variety and quality. The lifecycle of butterflies and their need for specific foodplants, habitat types and in some cases, symbiotic relationships with other species such as ants, means that the presence of specific butterfly species can be a good indicator of habitat quality. For similar reasons, the diversity of species being recorded is a good indicator of habitat variety.
Surveying as a way of tracking other things (e.g. climate change, pollution, etc). Climate change or pollution might explain why a once common species is less common. However, care needs to be taken to make sure that the survey is really looking at long-term trends and that confounding factors are considered. The population of a specific butterfly species varies from year to year depending on the weather at key stages in its lifecycle, the availability of food-plants, habitat quality, breeding success in the previous year, etc. It can take a population several years to recover from a bad year and one species can have a bad year in a particular location while another has a good year in that same location.
Surveying to ensure development is happening in the right place and taking account of the important species and habitats in that place. I wrote about this in a series of blog-posts finishing with this one – https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2024/09/05/kingfishers-and-alphabet-soup-part-3-issues-and-solutions/. I recently saw some comments by the academic Sophus zu Ermgassen, which I now can’t find, that emphasised the point that our systems and structures almost always put development first. My conclusion is that this type of survey is necessary but doesn’t make things better for nature.
While writing the post, I had the opportunity to take part in an MSc project looking into why people engage with citizen science projects. Disappointingly the survey focused on the surveyors’ motivations rather than on the wider benefits of the survey. Respondents were asked whether surveying had affected their love of nature or their friendship groups, but not whether they had created actionable hope for the respondent or their community. Previously I have concluded that surveys must be purposeful, and we must be prepared to change what and how we survey as the purpose changes. I will now incorporate Scott Laurnier’s idea of “actionable hope” – determining whether a survey is sufficiently purposeful should consider how that survey will bring people together to act positively for nature.
I reviewed the various butterfly surveys that I am involved with and estimated the degree to which they benefit nature and create actionable hope. For example, the annual Big Butterfly Count is currently underway (https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/). I submitted my first set of results for 2025 and got a nice automated thank-you email containing the following sentence – “The information you gather supports our scientists’ understanding of what is happening to the UK’s butterflies, so they can put in place the conservation measures needed to recover from a Butterfly Emergency.”. Leaving aside the sensational nature of talking about a Butterfly Emergency, it seems unlikely that my 15-minute survey will significantly benefit nature or create actionable hope. Realistically, the Big Butterfly Count is more about getting more people in more places involved with butterfly conservation.
It is easier to see how transect surveying (https://ukbms.org/methods) can benefit nature particularly when the data is being shared with the land-owner, and how it can create actionable hope when specific actions are agreed, conducted and communicated.
Writing this blog-post has helped me work out which surveys to focus on in 2026 and has reminded me of the importance of sharing information about the results, and what is being done with them, with the appropriate communities.
This is the first of two blog-posts that I resolved to write in my latest annual review (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/seven-years-on/). When I first started this blog, I drafted but never posted a post about whether, if you had a bit of spare cash, it was better to buy land and manage it for nature or whether it was better to give the money to an organisation that could do that for you. My friend Tim and I explored the pros and cons but didn’t reach any clear conclusions. Although we both thought that land-owning conservation organisations should be best placed to do this, we had both seen some odd acquisition decisions. For example, certain land purchases seemed to lack the due diligence necessary to determine if the land could be managed for nature’s benefit in a way that was sustainable over the long-term without bankrupting the new landowner.
In the subsequent seven years, I have spent a lot of my time volunteering on land managed for nature conservation. This has given me first-hand experience of the problems that landowners face, such as: the weather (e.g. dealing with the aftermath of floods); zoonotic diseases (e.g. ash die-back); invasive species (e.g. Himalayan balsam); anti-social behaviour (e.g. fires, abuse, fly-tipping, etc); dealing with all of the organisations that have some say on how you manage your land (e.g. a local authority’s rights of way team); and trying to do the right thing for the special species and habitats that make, or could make, their home on that land.
These experiences have made it pretty clear to me that we should be supporting those organisations that are capable of managing land for nature at scale. I have written before about the importance of supporting organisations that: offer a realistic solution to a problem; are demonstrating a measurable positive impact; and are well run. One of the signs I look for to see if an organisation is well run is whether they have a clear understanding of how their actions will deliver a positive impact (i.e. a theory of change) (https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/investing-for-nature-revisited/). Mark Avery goes further in his excellent book, Reflections (Avery, 2023), and recommends thinking hard about which environmental organisations to invest your money in and not being afraid to take that money somewhere else.
In that blog-post I concluded that I would donate to land-owning conservation organisations rather than trying to buy and manage land myself. Since writing that blog-post we have donated to The Woodland Trust (https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/), Tarras Valley Nature Reserve (https://www.tarrasvalleynaturereserve.org/), and The Wildlife Trusts (see below).
Well-run land-owning organisations are likely to be there for the long-term. Some of the smaller conservation organisations are struggling to survive in the current economic climate. I have previously cast doubt on whether one or two of the wildlife trusts would survive. However, I have recently seen how the trusts have worked together to secure the future of part of the Rothbury estate (https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/appeals/rothbury-estate-nature-and-nation). I have been assured that they would also work together to help a trust in crisis.
One of the reviewers of my first draft of this post pointed out that buying land yourself might mean that you could spend more because you were retaining the capital. Julia Davis (see https://wehavethepower.org/ or https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/05/the-millionaire-rewilding-the-countryside-one-farm-at-a-time) is a philanthropist who has successfully helped organisations buy land by providing them with an interest-free bridging loan. She is now supporting other philanthropists to do the same. This model allows people to make sure that their capital, and not just the interest on that capital, is delivering for nature.
Organisations in receipt of one of Julia’s loans need to work out how they repay it in the long-term, and how they are going to afford the extra costs of managing the new land. There is a possibility that these organisations over-stretch themselves due to the availability of these loans, but Julia’s organisation, and others, will provide advice to avoid this.
Other schemes such as match-funding and biodiversity net gain provide ways for organisations to fund land purchases. I am aware that some interesting deals have been done in the first few months of 2025 using these mechanisms.
When I drafted this post, I thought that however it is funded, we need to see suitable land being sold to organisations that can manage it in the right way for the UK’s nature in perpetuity. However, both the needs of organisations capable of managing land at scale, and the way funding mechanisms are ending, favour the procurement of large areas of nature-rich or potentially nature-rich land. For example, the latest proposals for speeding up development suggest that developers will pay into a fund that will potentially buy and manage nature reserves elsewhere. This approach neglects some of the most important things that we have learnt about conservation in recent decades including: the mitigation hierarchy; the Lawton principles; and the importance of making nature accessible to everyone.
A version of the mitigation hierarchy is currently enshrined in UK planning policy “… the mitigation hierarchy set out in paragraph 186(a) of the National Planning Policy Framework which states that a planning application should be refused if significant harm to biodiversity resulting from the development cannot be avoided (through locating on an alternative site with less harmful impacts), adequately mitigated, or, as a last resort, compensated for. …” (Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2024)
The 2010 Making Space for Nature report, led by Professor John Lawton, has been summarised as saying we need spaces for nature that are bigger, better and more joined-up (Brotherton, 2020). These principles have been built into the policies of successive UK governments.
The importance of nature to our mental and physical health is now well recognised. This has led to policies to try and make greenspaces more accessible to urban populations, to include time in nature as a prescribed cure for some health conditions, and to (re)introduce nature into the national curriculum.
It seems to me that the questions that I asked at the beginning of the blog, whether to buy land or donate to a well-run land-owning conservation organisation, is too simplistic. The work of Julia Davis and others recognises that there may be other ownership models that might make money work harder. There is also a danger that by focusing on “bigger and better” we are neglecting “more joined-up” and more accessible opportunities. On reflection, the right answer for someone with a bit of spare money, is probably to treat land for conservation like a portfolio and spread your investments across small local purchases, donations to well-run organisations and potentially working with philanthropic networks to tackle conservation challenges that are not being addressed by those well-run organisations.
One of my reviewers suggested that small pieces of land, ideally in good condition, that require little management and link up larger parcels of good habitat, would be ideal for a philanthropist. The draft of our county’s local nature recovery strategy is highlighting exactly this type of opportunity, small parcels of land within a wider landscape that have greater value for nature because they join up priority habitats.
One question that came up while working on this blogpost was who is going to make sure that the right organisations are managing the right land in the right way? In the UK, it isn’t our chronically underfunded local authorities (who don’t even have the capacity to pick litter) or central government (who continue to be distracted by other issues, which I’ll come back to in the blog about lobbying). It isn’t landowners themselves – some do a great job of managing their land for nature, others (step forward certain housing developers) don’t even meet their legal obligations because they know that no-one is going to enforce them. So, who is going to make sure that this minimum standard is met? At the moment, the best answer seems to be a coalition of charities, lawyers and concerned citizens.
References
Avery, M., 2023. Reflections: What Wildlife Needs and How to Provide it. s.l.:Pelagic Publishing.
I have had an exciting start to 2025. I have given four talks on nature-related topics, received a long-service award for volunteering at the RSPB, and conducted my first bird and footpath surveys of the year. I have also started doing an extra day a week conservation volunteering which is mostly being spent extending the geographical spread of my winter practical work and summer surveying. I already seem to have done quite a lot of litter-picking in 2025, which is not necessarily something I want to spend more of my time doing.
It has now been almost seven years since I left full-time employment. My aim was to work out how I could have the greatest impact for the nature that I love. I now have a portfolio of roles, mostly voluntary, that bring me pleasure, keep me fit, allow me to interact with like-minded people and do some good things for nature. I have also learnt that the real value of this blog is “… to help me organise my writing (and reading) and to identify the themes, connections and insights that help me achieve my objectives.” (from https://ecoworrier133969581.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/what-have-i-learnt-in-june/)
Writing these blogposts helped me engage productively in the development of local nature recovery strategies. They also helped me tell stories to several different audiences. During the last year I have also given talks on the link between local history and nature; species reintroductions; and the work of local environment groups.
One thing that I have noticed during 2024 is that a number of the groups that I am involved with are getting increasingly popular in part because they are as important socially as they are from a conservation perspective. We were challenged by a dog-walker recently with a “don’t we pay our taxes so the Council can do this …”. We tried to tell him that we were working with the Council and that they had provided the tools we were using. I should have added that there were 24 people who had a reason for getting out of the house on a damp cold morning and who were learning new skills and meeting new friends (oh, and doing some stuff for nature).
In May I walked round the Isle of Wight in the company of, and with the support of, a great group of friends. The route, which was already the longest on Ultra Challenge’s calendar, had been extended due to cliff falls. Martin and I completed the 109km route in just over 26 hours, tired, muddy and bruised. I have been telling everyone that this was my last 100km event … unless someone close to me needs my support taking on a similar challenge.
This year’s challenge is to walk 58km (if you know you know) most of which will be on the Easter Challenge (https://www.ultrachallenge.com/easter-challenge/). I have already done a few walks with friends and have more planned.
So, I seem to be making good progress on the story-telling and walking parts of “… more time doing impactful things for nature (including telling stories) and walking with friends.” However, I recognise that I need to do more to increase my impact. In 2025, I am going to focus on increasing the impact of my learning, educating, lobbying and funding. I will finish this blog-post with a couple of paragraphs on the first two of these and then write a couple of follow-up blogs on lobbying and funding.
I love learning and when it comes to nature and conservation there is so much to learn. I also enjoy giving talks because of how much I learn from putting them together and how much I learn from my audience. Since the start of the year the audience at my talks have solved a local mystery for me, told me about good places to see owls and kingfishers, and asked me some great challenging questions. Being quizzed about why we make particular conservation interventions (e.g. cutting down bramble or burning gorse and birch) are always helpful reminders to stop and think about the whys and hows of conservation.
I already have several more opportunities to give talks or lead walks this year, and I am looking forward to sharing some of the things that I have learnt with other people. We are also at the early stages of planning a summer event to reach a wider audience.
Things that I want to learn more about this year include our rarer local butterflies (e.g. silver studded blues and graylings) and what can be done to improve their prospects. I will also be working hard to keep up to date with the latest thinking on development and conservation and particularly biodiversity net gain. There are definitely opportunities for informed groups and individuals to make positive interventions in housing, and other development, for the benefit of nature.
It isn't easy being green 