Volunteer groups get involved in a variety of tasks as well as the old chestnuts like scrub clearance. Find out more about some of the more regular ones below.
Newt Surveys
Every year in May, an army of newt trappers goes out into the reserve to undertake the annual newt monitoring, giving us an idea of the distribution and abundance of newts on the site. We set high-tech bottle traps (see photo) on a Friday evening and come back on the Saturday morning to check them all and record the newts and anything else that’s wriggled its way in overnight.
Moth Surveys
A couple of times a year, we set out the moth traps to build up a picture of which species are present and with the hope of tracking down some of our rarer species too. It’s also an opportunity for those you haven’t done so before to get a flavour of what it’s all about and discover what a great variety of kinds there are out there going about their business under cover of darkness. Traps are set on a Friday evening and checked on the Saturday morning. This activity is very much weather dependent: not something that can be done successfully in the cold, very wet, or very windy.
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