Surprise visitor to the farm today

When you haven’t quite worked out what to do with your tail… #beaverkit #beaver #socute #rewilding @rewildingbritain.org.uk @beavertrust.bsky.social

The first glimpse of the first beaver kit born in Lincolnshire for 400 years 🙌🦫🎉

How beautiful is this fox cub captured on one of our trail cams. One of my absolute faves #foxoftheday

A nettle full of caterpillars…

Tawny owlet sunbathing and waiting to be fed 📷@gpcatley

A new one for me in the ponds this evening - water stick insect, Ranatra linearis. A hemipteran, it ambushes prey with raptorial front legs before injecting it with digestive enzymes and sucking out the resulting soup. Fascinating!

I was pleased to show some farmers from Rutland around the farm this week. They had read my book and were inspired to consider something similar on their unproductive fields. They left excited to start making plans and I am beyond thrilled that my little book is making a difference, however small

Stunning hobby hunting dragonflies over the ponds this week 📷@gpcatley

Impromptu beavering this evening…

Surely one of the most beautiful insects. Dancing in the sunshine today 📷@gpcatley

Anyone else keep a sketchbook?

Recommended reading #booksky! Lovely quality printing and great story by @wildwrendale.bsky.social

Tadpole takeover…

First large red damselfly of the season 📷@gpcatley

Skylarks singing over a field of sunshine yellow dandelions 🌼

Beavering and batting 🦫🦇

A first for us today finding adder’s tongue fern by the beaver pond at the heart of the farm. Often an indicator of ancient grassland and healthy habitat it is a welcome sight!

A small stand of self-set willow has established here in around four years. The craters in the ground were pigs digging up the roots of hogweed. Love the layering of microhabitats, all enriching the environment here

Excited to see some more press coverage of my book, A Wilding Year - thank you @financialtimes.com

The owners of this monster live across the road from a highly important wetland reserve at Barton - Ive previously seen it chasing Water Rail as well as killing numerous other birds - absolute menace to wildlife time to introduce a keep it indoors ban or suffer fines like they have in Toronto

It’s Saturday night, I’m sat on my own in a bird hide watching little grebes. Honestly could not be happier 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

Bee-flies are back!

Empty caddisfly larval case in the pond this morning - another reminder of how amazing nature is

The Small Sallow Mining Bee—one of the earliest solitary bees to emerge each year, perfectly timed with the blooming of willow catkins. Essential early pollinators of the sallow that is thriving across the farm 📷@gpcatley

Beautiful end to a lovely day

Leaping into spring 📷@gpcatley

The toads have arrived! You can just hear their little chirps, and check out the clouds of frogspawn at the end - this is new habitat created just a few years ago. It’s embarrassing how happy this makes me 😂🐸 #toads #frogspawn #toadspawn #rewilding #wildwrendale #awildingyear

Much excitement about the frogspawn in the first photo as it’s the first that has appeared in a beaver-created pool. By damming across the dyke this winter, they have begun to create a more complex system of pools and wetlands - change is starting to happen. Very excited! 🐸🦫

I met Hannah of @wildwrendale.bsky.social just recently and she kindly sent a copy of A Wilding Year, which is published today 🎉 👏🏼 Written and beautifully illustrated by Hannah, it’s a touching, heartfelt account of a Lincolnshire farm released from unprofitable agriculture and returned to nature.

First butterflies of the year this weekend - hopefully they won’t be too shocked by the cold snap

First chiffchaffs this year and three brimstones - it’s officially Spring!

Disappointed but unsurprised to see this scaremongering nonsense on our local community page. Cue a massive fight in the comments, some ridiculous and ill informed assertions and a lot of pigeon hate. A testament to how disconnected from nature we have become.

Shoutout to an under appreciated gem - the beautiful stock dove. Stock doves are woodland birds and take their name from the old English word ‘stocc’ meaning stump, after their habit of nesting in tree cavities. They have even been known to nest in rabbit warrens! 📷@gpcatley #wildwrendale

Pond life! Love seeing these beautiful birds on our ponds - in just four years they are now supporting so much life 🦢 📷@gpcatley #swanlake #birds #rewilding #wildlifepond #pond #rewilding #wildwrendale

Glorious morning!

Watchful #foxoftheday #rewilding #wildwrendale 📷@gpcatley

Hurray! Some good news for bees at last. Our new government has followed the science, and refused the application by sugar beet farmers to use banned neonicotinoid pesticides.

Beavers and flooding - a 🧵. 🔹 Centuries of deforestation, wetland loss, and intensive land use have stripped away natural features that slow down water flow. Without trees, wetlands, and healthy soils, rainwater rushes downstream, overwhelming river systems and increasing flood risk.

Winter treasures 🍄🍂

As the shortest day of the year passes, the light slowly returns—and with it, a quiet shift in nature. Many species take their cues from day length, marking this as the beginning of a new cycle: buds prepare to bloom, animals adjust their rhythms, and the land readies itself for renewal.

Here’s a reminder to encourage everyone you know not to tidy away leaf litter. Amongst a myriad of species that rely on it, here is a cherry gall on an oak leaf, home to a cherry gall wasp. It stays on the fallen leaf nestled in the litter until it is ready to emerge

Snipe numbers have rocketed over the last few years as the land has re-wetted - 49 counted in one patch last week. Such beautiful birds - a joy to see 📷@gpcatley

I spotted a little bit of nature magic today 🍂✨ Within this beech leaf is a moth larva carving out tunnels as it munches away. It carries a gut bacteria that tricks the leaf into keeping its green pigment around the mine. This provides fresh food for the insect even after the leaf has fallen 🐛