Hello

We’re a husband and wife team (David and Katharine), who, with our two young children bought Auchgoyle Farm so that we could create an amazing home for wildlife. Wildlife is already returning and it is so exciting watching the diversity and abundance of animals and plants increase.

In a former life, David was a management consultant for Accenture and Katharine worked for the RSPB as an ecologist. We ran into each other (metaphorically and literally) at Sheffield University. A few years later we set sail for South America. We spent two years in the Caribbean- surveying seabirds with BirdLife’s partner, EPIC, and wrote the first complete Breeding Seabird Atlas of the Lesser Antilles.

We circumnavigated South America, but left our boat for fifteen months to become the first people in the world to run the continent (6,504miles 5000mileprojecty.org.) We pulled all our kit, including bird survey and education materials along with us. We did it for wildlife and wilderness, raising over $10.000 for conservation organisations, writing >30 articles for the Independent & Ecologist magazine etc. and speaking to hundreds of people about the natural world . A signed copy of the book is available to buy at the farm, Running South America with my Husband and other Animals or online. You can also buy Katharine’s children’s nature story, ‘Cyril’s Big Adventure‘ at the farm or online.

After the run, our first baby was born, and we sailed home with Theo from Uruguay to Falmouth…

Katharine is documenting the biodiversity of the farm and together we are managing the farm to increase wildlife. As well as farm work, Katharine works as a freelance ecologist for independent clients, schools and organisations including Scotland the Big Picture. She is also on the board of Friends of Glenan Wood as an ecological advisor.

We hope you will enjoy sharing this special, wild, part of the world with us.