Wildlife

Wildlife is very important to us. It’s why we’re here. Come & share it…

A million webs glinting in the winter sun

The songs of cuckoos, meadow pipits, spotted flycatchers, sand martins, redpolls and grasshopper warblers fill the air. While barn owls waft over star-lit meadows and tawny owls hoot from the woods. You might be lucky to see other nocturnal residents: secretive pine martins, otters, badgers, hedgehogs or foxes. Even if you don’t see them, you may find signs of their passing. Pockets of ancient meadow survive on the farm with species such as heath orchid, devil’s-bit scabious, ragged robin and lousewort attracting butterflies and hoverflies.

Gorse provides an almost year-round nectar source, wonderful thorny nesting habitat and natural tree guards. Standing dead wood provides a home for saproxylic invertebrates and their prey

Walk on the Wild-side

Amazing to think how far the young swallows’ wings will travel

Why not book a walk on the farm with Katharine? Find out more about how we are restoring biodiversity. Learn the songs of birds, the names of plants and what animals have been on walk about during the night… (to come)

Exciting to find adders breeding locally

An enormous, beautiful, diurnal, elephant hawk-moth

Four tawny owlets successfully fledged from the old dairy

Common carder bumble bee visiting ivy-leaved toadflax growing on walls

View from the bathroom window of a cuckoo watching the nettle beds for hairy caterpillars

FARM WILDLIFE LISTS

Birds

Breeding: Skylark, meadow pipit, tree pipit, reed bunting, chaffinch, goldfinch, greenfinch, bullfinch, linnet, siskin, lesser redpoll, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, tree creeper, goldcrest, spotted flycatcher, blackcap, willow warbler, grasshopper warbler, sedge warbler, white throat, grey wagtail, pied wagtail, song thrush, mistle thrush, black bird, wren, robin, stonechat, house sparrow, house martin, swallow, cuckoo, tawny owl, buzzard, starling, hooded crow, raven, mallard, dipper

Visitors: Barn owl, redwing, field fare, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull, greater black-backed gull, peregrine falcon, kestrel, golden eagle, white-tailed eagle, woodcock, heron, wheatear, carrion crow, jay

Close by: Redstart, hen harrier, short-eared owl, long-eared owl, osprey, whooper swan, curlew, oystercatcher, black guillemot, dunlin, sanderling, eider duck, cormorant, shag, kingfisher, magpie,

Mammals

Red deer, roe deer, pine martin, badger, fox, field vole, bank vole, water shrew, pigmy shrew, common shrew, hedgehog

Red squirrel are very close and we hope will soon find their way to us as our woodlands and hedgerows grow up

Butterflies

Orange-tip, meadow brown, small heath, small white, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, peacock, pearl-boarded fritillary, painted lady

Moths

A collage of the amazing moths found during one night’s (1st July 2021) trapping at Auchgoyle Farm by Mark Wilson- thank you, Mark! He recorded 56 species and 190 individuals. Check out their fabulous names. Moths really are quite extraordinary invertebrates.

Brimstone Moth Opisthograptis luteolata
Poplar Hawk-moth Laothoe populi
Peacock Moth Macaria notata
Clouded Border Lomaspilis marginata
Scoparia ambigualis
Beautiful Golden Y Autographa pulchrina
Green Carpet Colostygia pectinataria
Barred Straw Gandaritis pyraliata
Knot Grass Acronicta rumicis
Buff-tip Phalera bucephala
Light Emerald Campaea margaritaria
Large Emerald Geometra papilionaria
Drinker Euthrix potatoria
White Ermine Spilosoma lubricipeda
Mottled Beauty Alcis repandata
Buff Ermine Spilosoma lutea

Coxcomb Prominent Ptilodon capucina
Scalloped Hazel Odontopera bidentata
Coronet Craniophora ligustri
Flame Shoulder Ochropleura plecta
Map-winged Swift Korscheltellus fusconebulosa
Common White Wave Cabera pusaria
Clouded Buff Diacrisia sannio
Scalloped Hook-tip Falcaria lacertinaria
Spectacle Abrostola tripartita
Purple Clay Diarsia brunnea
Common Wave Cabera exanthemata
Garden Tiger Arctia caja
Celypha lacunana
Marbled Minor agg. Oligia strigilis agg.
Small Magpie Anania hortulata
Silver-ground Carpet Xanthorhoe montanata
Brown Rustic Rusina ferruginea
Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix Pandemis cerasana
Campion Sideridis rivularis
Pale-shouldered Brocade Lacanobia thalassina
Blastobasis lacticolella
Grey Arches Polia nebulosa
Smoky Wainscot Mythimna impura
Green Arches Anaplectoides prasina
Bright-line Brown-eye Lacanobia oleracea
Lesser Swallow Prominent Pheosia gnoma
Ingrailed Clay Diarsia mendica
Peach Blossom Thyatira batis
Snout Hypena proboscidalis
Straw Dot Rivula sericealis
Epiblema scutulana
Flame Axylia putris
Gold Swift Phymatopus hecta
Bactra lancealana
Pebble Hook-tip Drepana falcatari

Helcystogramma rufescens
Peppered Moth Biston betularia
Aethes cnicana
Skin Moth Monopis laevigella
Small Phoenix Ecliptopera silaceata

Beetles

To come

Dragonflies

Common goldenring (more to come!)

Bumblebees

Common carder bumblebee (more to come!)

Amphibians & Reptiles

Common toad, common frog, common newt, adder, slow worm, common lizard

Plants

Yellow rattle, common eyebright, ox-eye daisy, tufted vetch, bush vetch, meadow vetchling, , bird’s-foot-trefoil, greater bird’s-foot-trefoil, yarrow, sneezewort ribwort plantain, greater plantain, tormentil, louswort, heath spotted-orchid, Northern marsh-orchid, common poppy, corn flower, blue bell, wood sorrel, pignut, primrose, flag iris, meadow sweet, common valerian, cuckoo flower, creeping buttercup, meadow buttercup, common sorrel, dandelion, foxglove, common figwort, ivy-leaved toadflax, germander speedwell, hedge bedstraw, heath bedstraw, Devil’s-bit scabious (more to come)