r/RewildingUK

>A group of storks born and raised by a Sussex rewilding project have been spotted nesting in a Surrey industrial estate in what has been called a "major milestone" for the scheme.

>The Knepp Estate in West Sussex has been attempting to rewild storks in south-east England since 2016, reintroducing the migrating birds into the wild in the hope they will return to the UK for the first time in 600 years.

>Now, a group of the birds have nested at an industrial estate near Guildford, with the hope they will rear chicks in the coming years.

>Laura Vaughan-Hirsch, manager of the White Stork Project, told BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey: "We really want these birds to do well, and to spread and thrive."

>She said: "This is a major milestone in the project for us.

>"These birds are young and typically start breeding at four years old. We think they are putting up a practice nest.

>"This winter they will likely migrate and go off again, and next spring they will try and rear chicks on that nest."

>Knepp's rewilding project aims to reintroduce storks to the UK for the first time since the 1500s.

>Birds in the current group in Guildford have migrated as far as North Africa in the past. Eight of the 10 birds are from the project, but two have no rings on them, meaning they have come from the wild.

>Stephen Casson, chair of the Surrey Bird Club, said: "We have to queue up to have a look at the nest.

>"They are spreading their wings all over the South East."

>Released Scottish wildcats have given birth to wild kittens in the Cairngorms National Park for the third year in a row.

>The Saving Wildcats project announced on Monday that several released females have given birth to new litters this week.

>Led by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), Saving Wildcats captured trail camera images of a released female carrying kittens along a path.

>RZSS said it is a huge accomplishment for wildcat restoration efforts in Scotland.

>“There is so much anticipation when you first suspect there have been kitten births,” Louise Hughes, Saving Wildcats field operations manager, said.

>“It is a truly exciting event and seeing kittens on trail cameras really lifts the whole team and spreads a genuine buzz throughout the many communities across Scotland that support wildcat restoration.”

>The team suspected that multiple female wildcats had given birth after changes in behaviour were spotted by project officers monitoring their GPS-radio collar data.

>After setting out trail cameras, they were rewarded with the images of a female wildcat carrying her kittens on Tuesday, June 2.

>It is not currently known if other females have given birth or how many kittens are in each litter.

>“This increase in the wild population is one of the most encouraging signs a reintroduction project can have,” Roo Campbell, NatureScot mammal specialist, said.

>“It shows that the wildcats that have been released are adapting to the wild, surviving, finding mates and reproducing without human support.”

>The animals, also dubbed the Highland tiger, were declared functionally extinct in Britain in 2019.

>Since 2023, Saving Wildcats has released 46 wildcats into the Cairngorms National Park in an effort to save the species in Scotland.

>Some of the females now living in the wild successfully produced litters in the spring and summer of 2024 and 2025, which experts said provides hope for wildcats.

>Though the confirmation of successful breeding is reassuring, the RZSS said the Scottish wildcat population remains “small and vulnerable”.

>The wildlife conservation charity said efforts to bolster the population will continue, with more animals due to be released this summer.

>Saving Wildcats has reminded the public that wildcats are protected by law. People should not actively seek them out. If a wildcat is encountered, people should avoid disturbing them and quietly leave the area.

Is there any seeds I can sow to flower for wildlife in late summer into Autumn?

I have seen a few places selling boxes of bumble bees that you place in your garden.

Is this one of those things that sounds good but is actually a horrible idea? E.g. introduces diseases to local populations, etc... OR is it a good way to boost local numbers of insects.

If it is beneficial, does anyone know of good sources for invertibrates? What are the best to get?

Well this is sobering. What do we even do about this?

>A small band of volunteers has helped to grow nearly 8m native trees in Scotland, crucial to efforts to restore lost parts of the Atlantic rainforest, after collecting 11m seeds by hand.

>About 100 volunteers, including retired teachers and doctors, office workers and young families, have spent tens of thousands of hours venturing into often remote woods in the western Highlands and islands to search out seed-bearing trees.

>They have used detailed maps compiled by NatureScot and Scottish Forestry that identify pockets of ancient woodland, often in exposed, challenging locations, scrambling up hillsides to find the right specimens.

>They search for a select range of trees, known to have colonised Scotland after the last ice age: hazel, sessile oak, dwarf birch, willow, juniper, birch, wild cherry, wych elm, yew and elder.

>The ecologists involved said these trees have inherited the genetic resilience to survive in specific microclimates and soil types along Scotland’s Atlantic coast – an advantage non-native trees would lack, particularly as the climate changes.

>The latest surveys suggest only 30,000 hectares of original Atlantic rainforest, a rare temperate habitat adapted to the UK’s moist coastal environment, survives. Now the focus of multimillion-pound restoration projects, those pockets have been meticulously mapped within distinct seed zones devised by forestry experts.

>The seeds have been collected, graded and checked by the rewilding organisation Trees for Life at its tree nursery at Dundreggan near Inverness, with the finished saplings sent back out to the correct zones.

>The Woodland Trust has taken saplings for reforesting projects – including Glenn Shieldaig and Assynt in Wester Ross, Beò Airceig, a 30,000-hectare restoration around Loch Arkaig in Lochaber – and sold to scores of crofters planting small woods on former grazing land.

>Sheena Macauley, a biology graduate who lives near Oban, is one of those volunteers. A former IT manager at Scottish Power’s Cruachan hydro station, she combines seed-hunting with butterfly conservation, crouching down to spot the larvae of marsh fritillaries and burnet moths as she walked on one seed collection outing near Oban.

>“We need to regenerate for the generations coming behind us,” she said. “I mentioned it to my neighbours and one actually joined up as well. Another friend down in Glasgow, she joined a group down there. So, rather than moaning about climate change, actually do something.”

>Her team was supervised by Roz Birch, the volunteer coordinator with Trees for Life, who uses these outings to deliver impromptu biology lessons, pulling down branches and splaying leaves, or digging through seeds and nuts proffered by volunteers on their open palms.

>She has become expert in spotting the differences between Scottish native sessile oak and common, or English, oak; volunteers are shown how far sessile oak acorns and leaves sit from the twig. A moss-laden tree nearby offers a lesson on temperate rainforest ecology, with its bark home to a compact forest of moss and lichens that thrive in the moist climate.

>“You do have really extreme high winds and storms that will pass through. Again, the trees are pretty well adapted to that environment,” Birch explains, pointing at liverwort that has colonised an old, partly severed oak branch.

>“The uniqueness of the rainforest zone is there will be bryophytes, lichens, whole ecosystems on these trees and within these woodlands, that you can’t really find anywhere else apart from the west coast of Scotland and Wales and the south-west of England,” she said.

>The project is underpinned by rigorous ecology, and close observation of seasonal weather patterns, drawing on the ancient woodland and Caledonian pine inventories.

>Sites are often surveyed again and there are clear signs, Birch said, that climate heating means seed ripening happens earlier. A dry spring can stress rowan but turbocharge hawthorn, forcing seed collection dates to shift or be cancelled.

>The project fills a significant gap left by commercial or state-sponsored forestry organisations: these locations are too remote or costly for commercial seed collectors to visit, adding to the significance of the specimens Birch’s teams are saving.

>Its backers believe the project is the largest citizen-based reforestation programme of its kind.

>Originally conceived as a one-year project, it has now received funding for a fourth, from a coalition of donors including the People’s Postcode Lottery via Woodland Trust Scotland, Trees for Life appeals, the BrITE Foundation and the Clean Planet Foundation.

>Another of Birch’s volunteers is Laura Corby, 47, a marine biologist who prizes her time seed-hunting as it requires slowing down and focusing, undistracted, on tree branches and the ground.

>“You’re literally growing the future. And that’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? I don’t think people really understand the significance of the rainforest, even people who’ve lived here their whole lives,” she said.

Hey Im very interested in getting in to rewilding and conservation especially when it comes to wild plants. Ive been volunteering with a local group for a couple months now and they recently offered me a level 3 sustainability apprenticeship. I definitely think I'll go for it but I wanted to ask here if anyone has done something similar and what they learned from it, how helpful it was and any recommendations people might have for things I should do as well. Thank you <3

We have a wildflower meadow and are conflicted as to when we should cut it.

I was considering early March - to allow insects to hibernate in the long grass/plants over winter and allow birds to forage the seed heads.

As an alternative I was considering cutting in autumn carefully and then standing the cutting upright in pots so that any insects hibernating within the plant matter can stay there.

What do you good people suggest/recommend?