The Wandering Ecologist Podcast

In this episode we shine the spotlight on the remarkable Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, one of Britain’s rarest and most secretive woodland birds. Join us as we hammer into the details of a pioneering survey with passionate woodpecker-philes, Ken and Linda Smith, who have been deploying innovative audio recorders to find out if these small woodland birds are more widespread than we thought. Ken and Linda share field stories from years of monitoring such an elusive species and how recent breakthro...

In this episode I visit my friend Paul Stevens, just down the road from home, to gawp at a fantastic set-up on his house. His sidewall is bedecked in Swift nest boxes and House Martin nest cups, providing a beautiful bird metropolis where these declining red-list birds can thrive. Paul makes these boxes and nest cups from scratch himself, drawing on his experience he has gained from working with these birds. The successes he has had at home for Swifts and House Martins has really fired up a w...

Transport yourself to the beautiful mountains of northern Spain as we visit our lovely friends Katie and Luke at their Wild Finca – an old farm they are managing through agri-wilding, creating the most wonderful diverse habitat mosaics for nature and a refuge their young family. This episode is a departure from the normal format with a long and wide-ranging discussion on how they manage the land with Asturcón ponies and Casina cattle, the importance of environmental education for local ...

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 of...

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...

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...