2026

On a surprisingly sunny afternoon during an otherwise extremely wet week in early June, a group of South Yorkshire farmers dedicated to grey partridge recovery gathered for a farm walk to celebrate their farmer cluster’s successes so far.

For barn owls, nesting sites have become an important factor in the life cycle. Loss of hollows in old trees through woodland clearance and replanting, the conversion of traditional barns on farmsteads to dwellings for humans, and the need for modern grain stores to be wildlife-free zones for food hygiene purposes have all contributed to the housing problem.

Wasps are widely disliked. Renowned as unforgiving and unnecessary, delivering stings which they have the cheek to survive, unlike our beloved bees, often doomed to a single, fatal defence. But what if these wasps were just as much a farmer’s ally as pollinating bees?

It’s hard to believe how quickly the last six months have passed. The placement has flown by in a busy whirl of tubing samples, identification, data entry and analysis, and the occasional bits of fieldwork. Since September, much of our time has been concentrated in the lab, learning key invertebrate identification skills whilst working through samples collected during last summer.

With nearly 70% of Scotland’s land used for agriculture, farmers will play a key role in addressing the biodiversity and climate crises. In order to document what habitats are present and their condition, NatureScot has been developing tools to help farmers to quantify their habitats and how they are performing.