The Wandering Ecologist Podcast

Send us a text 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 & ...

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 ...

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 distinc...

It’s episode 2 and I’m high up on the South Downs to meet up with my chum and amazing field naturalist, Neil Hulme. Today we’re focusing on the Duke of Burgundy, and how Neil’s life-long passion for this exquisite butterfly, and the knowledge he has accumulated from close observation and field work, has resulted in a huge turn around in its fortune. It has gone from being on the brink of extinction in the county to making an epic come back. Working with landowners and the South Do...

Join me on a trip to the Sussex coast for episode 1, where I’ll be meeting up with my good friend, Pete Hughes, Ecologist for the Chichester Harbour Conservancy. We will be learning all about the success of the Return of the Tern nature recovery initiative and how some nesting rafts are restoring the breeding populations of Common Terns to Chichester Harbour. These beautiful migratory seabirds nest on shingle, but this natural nesting habitat can be severely affected year on year by a multitu...

Trailer for the forthcoming Wandering Ecologist Podcast!