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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.

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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.

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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.