Surrey Wildlife Trust

A big thank you to Chimney Fire Coffee I B Corp™ for donating some of their speciality coffee to our offices, keeping our teams fuelled as they work to protect Surrey’s wildlife! We’re thrilled to announce that Chimney Fire Coffee has joined us as a Silver Corporate Member. SWT supporters can now enjoy Chimney Fire Coffee’s delicious speciality coffee, compostable pods and coffee experiences with an exclusive 15% discount.

In what organiser Dan Banks has hailed ‘a triumph for citizen science’, teams of volunteers have gathered vital data from sites that typify vital and at-risk types of habitat. From June to August at Sheepleas Nature Reserve above East and West Horsley, more than 80 volunteers surveyed 20 hectares of chalk grassland and also areas of coarser grassland and woodland edges. At Unstead Wetland Nature Reserve near Godalming, members of the Unstead Nature Community Group joined additional SWT volunteers and staff over an eight-week period to examine shallow stillwater and reedbed habitat that serves as a vital home for hundreds of species from migrant birds to at-risk butterflies. At both sites, citizen scientists used quadrats and the S4N app to assess, identify and record the key species present. Read the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/3Z59xLx Space4Nature is made possible by players of the People's Postcode Lottery

Want to know what wildlife might be making its home on ground you own, manage or work on with a community group? Help is at hand thanks to our new 'Wildlife Recording Kits' - boxes filled with surveying equipment to help community groups undertake species monitoring on sites from gardens and recreation grounds to local woodland. From August 2024, the kits will be available free of charge from Guildford and Godalming Libraries and directly from our head office in Pirbright, and can be reserved for one or two weeks at a time. With one-third of local species in trouble, we're on a mission to encourage more people to take action to protect and provide homes for native plants and animals – and these kits will help people identify what wildlife, from minibeasts to small mammals, is present, enabling them to make better informed land management decisions to benefit nature. Read the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/470Sw6X

Want to know what wildlife might be making its home on ground you own, manage or work on with a community group? Help is at hand thanks to our new 'Wildlife Recording Kits' - boxes filled with surveying equipment to help community groups undertake species monitoring on sites from gardens and recreation grounds to local woodland. From August 2024, the kits will be available free of charge from Guildford and Godalming Libraries and directly from our head office in Pirbright, and can be reserved for one or two weeks at a time. With one-third of local species in trouble, we're on a mission to encourage more people to take action to protect and provide homes for native plants and animals – and these kits will help people identify what wildlife, from minibeasts to small mammals, is present, enabling them to make better informed land management decisions to benefit nature. Read the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/470Sw6X

Last week, working alongside our partners at Surrey Hills National Landscape, we collaborated with Stuart Myers from Equiculture to deliver two workshops for horse owners on good practice for pasture management and improving soil health. A separate training session was also held for environmental advisors. Thank you to everyone who attended, and a big thank you to Stuart for three fantastic and inspiring workshops! These workshops were made possible with funding from the Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) scheme and our Hedgerow Heritage project (The National Lottery Heritage Fund), with lunch generously provided by SES Water.

We had a fantastic morning filming with BBC Newsround and SWT Conservation Manager Adam Bolton discussing the effects of wildfires on Surrey's heathland sites. Thank you to the kids from Tice's Meadow Nature Reserve holiday club for joining us to ask Adam questions and hunt for species in the heather! Surrey's precious heathland habitats are at particular risk of wildfires during prolonged dry periods. Rising temperatures and a lack of rainfall has led to increasingly large, uncontrollable blazes that destroy large areas of heathland and put many rare species at risk - including the reptiles, amphibians, ground-nesting birds, invertebrates and mammals that call our heathland sites home. Stay tuned and keep an eye out for when the story drops...

🐮 We're hiring! If you are looking to combine experience in land management with a working knowledge of livestock and grazing, then our role within the Trust grazing team could be for you ➡️ https://bit.ly/3WPKBF4 🗓️ Applications close 30th Aug.

We’re #hiring! Join our brilliant Communities Team as a Wilder Communities Coordinator and help us empower communities to take action for wildlife within their local areas 🌱 This role is great opportunity to make a significant contribution to nature recovery and climate action in Surrey.

🐮 Looking for a role that combines farming knowledge with the desire to protect and restore local biodiversity? We're currently recruiting for two positions within our conservation grazing team ➡️ https://bit.ly/3vjp6ym

This year, we're working with groups of local landowners in the west of the county – including Elstead, Thursley & Haslemere - to achieve a vital step forward for Surrey’s wildlife and landscapes: the connection and safeguarding of lowland heathland sites that benefit both people and wildlife. Through the Natural England funded Heathland Connections Nature Recovery Project, the Trust will work with the Heathland Connections partnership - which includes National Trust, Land App, the Surrey Hills National Landscape board, Surrey County Council and Waverley Borough Council, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) and RSPB – to help landowners carry out vital conservation work on adjoining areas of land. This should halt the fragmentation and erosion of heathland habitats which threatens to undermine their resilience and suitability for wildlife, and is part of the government’s commitment to a growing national Nature Recovery Network of wildlife-rich sites. If you're a landowner and or land manager and would like to find out more, please contact [email protected] Read the full article ➡️ https://bit.ly/3LVd4UQ