October

While there are ten weeks left until Christmas, it’s never too early to make sure you’re ready in good time. This year we’re advising customers to get their orders in earlier than usual with 19 days of Royal Mail strikes taking place in the coming weeks.

Drones might be the latest recreational gadget; however, their aerial imaging capabilities make them excellent tools for habitat and wildlife research. To discuss this further, staff members from across the trust recently met up at the GWCT Allerton Project, equipped with some state-of-the-art drones and eager placement student pilots.

Immortalised by Kenneth Grahame as poetic dreamer Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, the water vole is today a rare sight in Britain’s countryside. Habitat loss and predation have diminished the population of Britain’s largest vole by over 90%, and they are currently believed to be extinct in 97% of their former range. So, witnessing an attempt to re-establish a population in the lower Avon Valley on the Hampshire-Dorset border recently was a rare privilege indeed.

You may be aware that we're currently raising funds to purchase more essential trail cameras to help us understand what's driving the decline in ground-nesting bird populations. Trail cameras show us exactly what is predating nests and provide vital evidence we can share with policymakers, landowners, conservation bodies, and the government. You can see images from some of the footage we've been able to capture with trail cameras here.

The Bro Cors Caron SMS project held a well-attended event at Cruglas Farm on Friday 23rd September, showcasing the progress of the project to a variety of stakeholders and interested individuals.