The last couple of weeks have been tricky for walking my UKBMS butterfly transect at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend Extension. Luckily the sunken track we excavated and the latest chalk scrape nearby have provided shelter and abundant food plants for Small Blues - not bad for an ex-arable field!!

👥 1,700 volunteers 🐦 Over 80 nature reserves 📅 24,200 volunteer sessions 🏠 2 visitor centres Our volunteers are the driving force that makes our work possible, coming together to restore nature. Thank you! 👉 Find out more: bbowt.org.uk/volunteer

🐌 We are excited to be working with colleagues to make The Nature Festival a reality. We have so many great events lined up; there's something for everyone. See you there! 🌳 thenaturefestival.org @ecioxford.bsky.social @morethanadodo.bsky.social @bbowt.bsky.social @naturerecovery.bsky.social

We were delighted by the chance to nominate @mickdjones.bsky.social through the Buckinghamshire Lieutenancy to attend the annual Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace 💂 The nomination was for individuals who had shown an outstanding commitment to their charities.

Dedicated, hardworking, knowledgeable, kind, flexible, generous. We couldn't do what we do without our volunteers. Thank you. 👉 Find out more and get involved: bbowt.org.uk/volunteer

We're delighted to share that our Director of External Affairs and Landscape Recovery, Matthew Stanton, has been named one of the UK’s Top 100 Environmental Professionals in The ENDS Report Power List 2026 – a recognition of those who have made the greatest impact over the last two years.

It's my turn to check on these lovely ladies. Welsh Beulah and black Hebridean sheep conservation grazing on a lovely little @bbowt.bsky.social reserve tucked away in a hidden valley in south Berkshire. Note the large anthills dotted across the site, a sure sign of undisturbed ground.

👉 Join BBOWT for half-price by 4 June: bbowt.org.uk/membership-offer We're extending our half-price membership offer until Thursday! Sign up today and help us to restore nature locally while receiving all the benefits of membership. PLUS we’ll send you a free butterfly garden guide 🦋

I'm more confined to home these days so my garden has to substitute for @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend. Despite the awful dry state, semi wild areas & fringe of trees has worked well with Red-headed Cardinal beetles and striking Orange-sided Comb-horn showing up - possibly with logs from the reserve!

Bombus vestalis (Vestal Cuckoo Bee), male. Seen @bbowt.bsky.social College Lake Reserve, yesterday. The bramble is flowering so early this year. @bumblebeetrust.bsky.social

🙌 As we celebrate Volunteers' Week, we wanted to say a huge THANKYOU to all of our incredible volunteers - we couldn't do it without you. 👉 Find out how you can get involved: bbowt.org.uk/volunteer

Forester moth from Bernwood Meadows NR yesterday. @upperthames.bsky.social @bbowt.bsky.social

🥳 30 Days Wild starts tomorrow and we are so excited! Take a little time for yourself and for nature this June. You can still join thousands of people and get your free resources to start 30 Days Wild tomorrow 👉 wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild

We're turning Crowthorne into swift city! 🪶 Thanks to the wonderful local fire brigade who helped with the installation, swift boxes and call systems are now in place across Crowthorne as part of the Swift Street project.

It looks like we'll be seeing more grey wagtails soon! Within days of the first brood fledging at Waterstock Local Widllife Site, the parents wasted no time in getting started on the next batch. With thanks to our friend Henry for sending us his trailcam footage.

⛸️ A common sight at ponds, lakes, ditches and slow-moving rivers, pond skaters have water-repellent hairs on the bottom of their feet, enabling them to walk on the surface film of the water!

Another year, another family of goosanders at Waterstock Local Wildlife Site! With thanks to our friend Henry for sending us his trailcam footage.

BBOWT would be honoured if you wanted to celebrate the life of a loved one who was passionate about the natural world by leaving a donation in their memory to help support our work to protect local wildlife. Find out how you can make an in-memory donation: bbowt.org.uk/support-us/donate-in-memory

We recently had some unintended users of the adder tunnels at Greenham Common! With thanks to Alan, our diligent volunteer who monitors the trail cameras. 👉 Find out more about our pioneering project to help adders: buff.ly/gp3631W

🦊 Our Senior Land Manager, Roger Stace, was delighted by the sight of playful fox cubs during a weekend walk! In May, young foxes might start to accompany the adults on hunting expeditions, looking for small mammals such as mice, voles, weasels and rabbits.

It’s difficult to stay humble when you have ‘beautiful’ in your name, but these stunning damselflies certainly earn the title. Beautiful damselflies live on small, fast flowing rivers and streams, and the male demoiselles rest on bankside vegetation awaiting passing females.

@bbowt.bsky.social not a bad show of early orchids at Homefield this year. Thanks!

🙌 Our Community Organising team scored a win for nature and people in Reading last month!

💚 What's your earliest memory of nature? It’s almost time for 30 Days Wild, @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social annual nature challenge, which encourages us to take a little time to connect with the nature around us, to create new, wild memories.

We’re hiring! 📣 Trusts & Grants Officer Help nature recover by securing vital funding for BBOWT’s projects, turning great ideas into fundable, impactful work. Join our passionate team and make a real difference for wildlife and people across our region. Apply now: www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs/trusts-...

Seeing the effect of the extended dry conditions over the last couple of years on our orchids at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend - low numbers, delayed or lack of flowers and changes in distribution. 79 Fly Orchids in one area but few in open settings. Grt Butterfly just flowering but many blind.

🪺 This is a clutch of curlew eggs! We're very fortunate to see (and hear) curlews at this time of year on our reserves, including Chimney Meadows and Gallows Bridge Farm, where we manage the site to support them.

We’re hiring a Community Organiser 🌱 Help nature recover by bringing people together to take meaningful action for nature, build strong local relationships, and support lasting community-led change. Apply now: www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs/communi...

The delicate cuckooflower is unrelated to bird, though it generally blooms when cuckoos start to call. Also known as ‘lady’s smock’, they grow in damp meadows and woodland rides, such as Chimney Meadows near Bampton and Finemere Wood near Aylesbury.

It's been a challenging week at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend trying to record insects. Whenever I could get there it was mostly dull, cold and windy. Nevertheless, there were a few nice things to spot hunkering down in the vegetation - female B-b Chaser, female Common Blue and a Green Hairstreak.

🦋 Make a difference for local nature and join the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust for half the normal price this month! 👉 Join today: bbowt.org.uk/membership-offer

🐮 The cattle have arrived at Wildmoor Heath!

Will you answer the call of the wild? 📞 Join the UK's biggest nature challenge and sign up for 30 Days Wild this June! Sign up today to receive your free pack: wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild

🍅 Things are taking shape at the Uffington drive verge in Bracknell! 🫛 The newly formed residents’ group took action and asked for the help of Abri - who owns the verge - to prepare the soil for vegetable planting. 📸 Barbara Polonara, Community Organising Officer

💚 The green hairstreak butterfly only appears green when its wings are closed, because it is the undersides that are so strikingly-coloured – helping it blend into foliage when at rest. This means they can be very difficult to spot!

Sunday 17 May is your big chance to stock up with plants for your garden, buy second-hand tools, gardening & wildlife books, homemade produce and apple juice. @bbowt.bsky.social Chilterns Group Plant and Produce Market at Great Missenden Memorial Centre 11am - 1pm. Support your local Wildlife Trust!

Our Teen and Young Rangers did a fantastic job building a log and brash stockade at the Nature Discovery Centre! This allows us to recycle organic material from our reserve management as well as providing a microhabitat for various creatures, including birds, insects, and small mammals 🪲🐁

🎵 Have you heard a cuckoo yet this spring? The Cuckoo’s call is an iconic sound of spring, but sadly one that is heard less with each passing year. It is on the British Trust for Ornithology’s ‘Red List’, meaning their numbers are falling dramatically. 📽️ Taken at Crookham Common by Lou Reeve

Tiny matt black male Callomyia amoena flat-footed fly (note the orange halteres) seen at BBOWT's Parsonage Moor, Cothill nr Abingdon (see our flies book bit.ly/4dqQI8Z) The female has an orange-banded abdomen & silvery patches on the thorax @bbowt.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Who's up for restoring ponds? 🐸✋️ We worked with Burnham residents to create a group that could represent the community and work with the Parish Council to bring the Lent Green Lane pond back to its former glory - making it a place for wildlife to thrive and for people to enjoy and feel ownership.

Today in 1877 Charles Rothschild was born. On my butterfly transect at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend I remembered, looking over the valley where Charles & his brother Walter collected butterflies & went on to start the Wildlife Trusts and save this reserve. 1st Common Blue of the year seemed right!

🦋 Sign up for 30 Days Wild today! Visit wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild

🦋 Your Wild Memories – celebrate an engagement, a marriage, a special birthday, a retirement, a favourite family walk or perhaps remember a loved one with a butterfly plaque at one of our nature reserves. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvOt...

🪵 Thank you to the wonderful group of volunteers from Wild Banbury who worked closely with Banbury Town Council to build a dead hedge around a new pond at Spiceball Park - pictured here in its beginning stages!

Have you ever spent time at the glorious Greenham or Snelsmore Commons? We’d love to hear how you found it – your responses to the surveys below will help inform decisions made about the sites and improvements to visitor experience. Please take a few minutes and click on the survey links below 👇

We’re hiring! 📣 Duty Manager at College Lake Nature Reserve Join our friendly Visitor Centre Team, you’ll play a key role in creating a memorable visitor experience. Apply now: www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs/duty-ma...

Happy 100th Birthday, Sir David Attenborough! Thank you for a lifetime dedicated to bringing the wonders of the natural world into our homes, hearts and conversations.

@bbowt.bsky.social a blast from the past today when my mum unearthed these badges from the Wildlife Watch Gold Award in the 1990s. I got my final badge from David Bellamy, there were a handful of Northern Irish kids who achieved it at the same time 🫶🏻 decades later the love for wildlife persists

It was a dull bank holiday Monday at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend - no butterflies and hardly any visitors - so perfect for a recce to see how some of the plants are coming along for my guided walk focusing on Specialities and Secrets on Sun 24 May - see bbowt.org.uk/events. Still plenty of places!

A bumblebee-mimic hoverfly Matsumyia berberina seen at BBOWT's Dry Sandford Pit last week before the weather turned damp and colder. One of the many hoverflies featured in our #BestFlyBook bit.ly/4dqQI8Z @bbowt.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @gailashton.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social