When you take on a new piece of land, everyone wants to know what your plans are. And we have plenty, of course—Highland cattle with their wise old faces, a future of regenerative grazing, and a hope that this place will hum a little louder with life as the years roll on. But before anything else, there’s the land as it is right now. Its creatures, its surprises, its quiet daily comings and goings. And that’s where a baseline species survey comes in handy.
So this year, rather than patting ourselves on the back for any ecological triumphs, we’re doing something much simpler:
We’re paying attention.
This is our first year managing this ground, so everything we’ve recorded is a baseline—a snapshot of who’s already here before our shaggy lawnmowers have had time to shape anything at all. Think of it as the land’s “before picture,” the cast list before the story really gets going.
And what a cast it is.
Birds of the Year: The Feathered Regulars (and the Odd Surprise)
Some birds announced themselves loudly; others skulked. Some barrelled past on the wind; others perched on a fence post and watched us like we were the new neighbours (which, in fairness, we are).
Across the year, we noted 62 species, from the everyday to the quietly impressive.
A few favourites:
- The Barn Owl, ghosting across the field margins sometimes even in broad daylight.
- The Curlew, calling out over the pasture with that unmistakable wild cry.
- Lapwings, dancing the sky into spring.
- The ever-busy Wrens, shouting far louder than their size should allow.
- And of course, the Buzzard, doing its best to look disinterested while very much watching everything.
Then there were the small joys: Willow warblers stitching the hedgerows with song, pied wagtails inspecting hoofprints, skylarks climbing invisible ladders into the sky. And these are just a few of them — the full cast is gathered in the species list below. As baselines go, it’s a beautiful beginning.
Bird Species List 2025
Below is the full list of birds recorded during our first year on the land.
Bird Conservation Status: 🔴 Red — highest concern | 🟠 Amber — moderate concern | 🟢 Green — low concern
Birds – 62 species (click to expand)
A–C
Barn Owl 🟢Blackbird 🟢
Black-headed Gull 🟠
Blue Tit 🟢
Bullfinch 🟠
Buzzard 🟢
Canada Goose 🟢
Carrion Crow 🟢
Chaffinch 🟢
Chiffchaff 🟢
Coal Tit 🟢
Common Gull 🟠
Common Redstart 🟠
Cormorant 🟢
Curlew 🔴
D–L
Dunnock 🟢Fieldfare 🔴
Goldcrest 🟢
Goldfinch 🟢
Great Spotted Woodpecker 🟢
Great Tit 🟢
Greenfinch 🔴
Grey Heron 🟢
Greylag Goose 🟠
House Martin 🔴
Jack Snipe 🟢
Jackdaw 🟢
Kestrel 🟠
Lapwing 🔴
Lesser Black-backed Gull 🟠
Lesser Redpoll 🔴
Little Egret 🟢
Long-tailed Tit 🟢
M–P
Magpie 🟢Mallard 🟠
Meadow Pipit 🟠
Mistle Thrush 🔴
Moorhen 🟠
Nuthatch 🟢
Oystercatcher 🟠
Pheasant 🟢
Pied Wagtail 🟢
Reed Bunting 🟠
Robin 🟢
Rook 🟠
S–W
Shoveler 🟠Siskin 🟢
Skylark 🔴
Song Thrush 🟠
Sparrowhawk 🟠
Spotted Flycatcher 🔴
Starling 🔴
Stock Dove 🟠
Swallow 🟢
Tawny Owl 🟠
Teal 🟠
Treecreeper 🟢
Willow Warbler 🟠
Wigeon 🟠
Wood Pigeon 🟠
Wren 🟠
Yellowhammer 🔴
Butterflies: A Summer of Small Miracles
Butterflies tell you a lot about a place—sunlight, shelter, wildflowers, the quiet decisions a landscape makes when you’re not looking.
This year, during our species surveys, we recorded 17 species of butterfly, each one a tiny, fluttering clue about the health and variety of the land.
A few highlights:
- The Small Skipper and Large Skipper, zipping around the grasses like they were late for something.
- Green-veined White and Orange-tip, spring’s bright little heralds.
- The purplish shimmer of a Purple Hairstreak, always a treat.
- Small Copper, glowing like a dropped ember.
- Summer stalwarts like Meadow Brown, Ringlet, and Speckled Wood holding the edges and pathways.
- And the royalty: Red Admiral, Painted Lady, Peacock, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell—soft-winged punctuation marks across the year.
Check out the full species list below. For a first look, it’s a wonderfully promising assortment of wings.
Butterfly Species List 2025
The full list of butterflies recorded during our first year on the land. Note that according to the Red List of Butterflies in Great Britain, these are all species of ‘Least Concern’
Butterflies — 17 species (click to expand)
Skippers
Small SkipperLarge Skipper
Whites
Large WhiteSmall White
Green-veined White
Orange-tip
Hairstreaks
Purple HairstreakCoppers & Blues
Small CopperCommon Blue
Nymphalidae
Red AdmiralPainted Lady
Small Tortoiseshell
Peacock
Comma
Speckled Wood
Meadow Brown
Ringlet
And the Highland Cattle?
Our Highland cattle—slow, thoughtful, fond of scratches and the occasional dramatic rumination—have only just begun their part in this relationship.
They’re here as gentle managers, not bulldozers; sculptors of structure, not razers of ground. But for now, we’re not crediting them with a single species sighting. They’ve barely had time to leave hoofprints, never mind ecological legacies.
This year’s wildlife belongs entirely to the land.
Why a Baseline Species Survey Matters
In the coming years—when the grazing has shaped mosaics of long and short grass, when we’ve planted native trees, sown wildflower seeds, built wooden leaky dams to create natural pools, and so on, once the land has had time to breathe and respond—then we’ll start noticing changes.
That’s when this baseline becomes powerful.
Not as a trophy list, but as a story of how managed grazing and wildlife-friendly land stewardship can shift a landscape gently toward more life.
For now, we’re simply learning the characters.
Listening to the chorus.
Watching the wings.
And honestly?
It feels like the perfect place to begin.