RESEARCH
Alongside being an amazing place to stay, Castle Wild Camp is also an important and active research site. We are monitoring how taking arable land out of production benefits wildlife, including birds, insects, bats, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, alongside other potential environmental benefits, such as changes in soil health and water quality.
Each May we host a BioBlitz, where we bring together a range of experts to record as many species as we can find on-site, from birds to bats to beetles. It will be fascinating to see how wildlife responds over the years.
We will share our findings on this site, via our newsletter and through academic and popular articles.
Did you know?
By switching from farming, the Castle Wild Camp site stops emitting carbon and instead will remove around 137 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year.
We're always on the look out for volunteers to help us, so if you'd like to get involved then get in touch.
PLANTS
We're completing annual plant surveys throughout the site. We've already found some exciting species and hope to find many more as the site recovers and blossoms!
INSECTS
We're recording insect communities both on land and in our freshwater habitats. In the absence of pesticides, we anticipate that insects will flourish at Castle Wild Camp. These changes will create the basis of a food chain that will then support birds, mammals and other species.
BIRDS
We complete monthly bird surveys at the site. In line with other similar sites in the UK, we hope to see large increases in both the number of birds on site, but also the diversity of species that can take advantage of this new nature area.
