A year into the Wild Woodbury rewilding project and the change in the landscape has been remarkable, not to mention the diversity and abundance of wildlife. With an ambitious aim of building an exemplar for sustainable land use to tackle the climate and ecological crises, the early years of the project were always going to be about letting nature take the lead as much as possible and allowing the land to naturally regenerate to give nature more space. But of course, that doesn't mean abandoning the land and the Wild Woodbury team, partners and volunteers have spent much of the year conducting surveys and collecting data on ecology, soil, hydrology, species and water quality to provide baselines for monitoring and future analysis.    

Surveyors have seen an increase in diversity and abundance in all areas, with the site list now topping 1300 species. A dry spring coupled with the increase of invertebrates attracted by the emerging pollinators in the fields led to a very positive breeding season. A rising number of juvenile birds have been spotted across the site including cuckoo, whinchat and nightjar. Eight Red List Birds of Conservation Concern have been confirmed to be breeding at Wild Woodbury. Skylarks have gone from two singing males last year to 18 in 2022; 28 yellowhammers have been recorded (no data for 2021); No tree pipits or woodlark were recorded in 2021 but a breeding pair of each have been sighted raising juveniles this year. 

Large clumps of the nationally scarce flora, lesser quaking grass have appeared which offers an excellent food source for many finches including goldfinch, linnet and yellowhammer. Butterfly transects have tracked over 200 meadow brown butterflies as well as silver-washed fritillary and newly hatched painted lady on the wing. The hot weather in July and August increased moth activity too, with traps attracting some rarer species such as dingy mocha. In just a few sessions, our invertebrate specialists have amassed over 300 species of beetles, bugs, flies and spiders, some of which only have a handful of previous records in Dorset. 
 
July yielded our first adder and slowworm on site, accompanying the already present grass snake and common lizard – just smooth snake and sand lizard to go for the six native reptiles! The reptiles from Wareham Forest are expected to move out onto the site over time, using the hedgerows to move along and disperse.  

Restoring a landscape and making space for nature on this scale takes time of course, but it is extraordinary to see all that has been achieved in just one year and to witness the abundance of wildlife species which are already calling Wild Woodbury home.