This is a new blog series by Maple Farm’s Wild Steward, Conor McNeil. The Wild Stewards programme places young people into paid, key decision-making roles in active nature recovery projects for one year, providing them with seminar and training opportunities as well as operational support, and facilitating shared learning between the Wild Stewards and the Youngwilders core team.

Major loss of habitat has led to a sharp decline in the numbers of Great Crested Newts throughout the UK, and we are keen to provide a viable new habitat for them at Maple Farm. Today marks the start of the our project to help save these important amphibians.

The Wayfinders weekends were a series of 3 on-site weekends at Maple Farm, that offered practical, field skills for young people covering grassland and birds, invertebrates and woodland, bats and reptiles

The feedback from these sessions has been amazing, and by the last workshop, we were oversubscribed with a large waiting list!

Part 2 of our project to help our honey bees.

Despite the weather, we had the most successful weekend workshop, making 3 fabulous log hives for wild honey bees. Thank you to everyone who participated. It was so rewarding!

Come and join us at our natural-style, tree hive making weekend workshop on 6th and 7th July 2024.

Youngwilders reflect on the year that was!

Pictured here are some of the amazing volunteers that worked tirelessly for two long weekends, helping to create a nature-based learning hub that will provide a wonderful space for future immersion in nature and study for all.

Maple Farm is Youngwilders’ most pioneering project. We’ve been very lucky to have the support and freedom to get experimental and work out new ways of running nature recovery work, and new ways of getting young people involved. In line with this forward-thinking theme to our work at Maple Farm, a new dawn hath arrived!

In line with our experimental approach to rewilding, we’ve tried a mixture of approaches to tackle the Giant Hogweed that has been occupying an increasing area along the river bank. We are constantly searching for new ideas for ways to control this invasive plant in the least ecologically damaging ways possible.

On Jan 22nd, Youngwilders and Charity Buddy had our first volunteer planting day at Maple Farm. The day involved 30 people planting 1050 hedgerow whips of hawthorn, blackthorn, crab apple, dogwood, dog rose, field maple, hazel and oak. As these grow, they’ll begin to connect three areas of woodland that are currently separated by a large grazed field, creating corridors that will link up the habitats and provide a major boost for biodiversity on the site.

Thanks to the Woodland Trust, we’ve managed to secure our first volunteering opportunity: planting over 200 metres of hedgerow!

Last week, Stefan and Richard from Carbon Rewild, and Joe Revans from University of the Arts London (UAL) joined us for a site visit at Maple Farm. They’re all thinking about different ways to improve our engagement with nature restoration projects and we’re excited to collaborate with them at Maple Farm to pilot their projects.

As we embark on rewilding Maple Farm, we’ve set out the results of our first habitat phase 1 and breeding bird survey from this year. Monitoring a site over time for changes in species diversity - or perhaps even the return of a species, such as nesting white storks at Knepp - will help improve our rewilding strategy and estimate the success of our different restoration activities. 

This May, on two bright and *very early* mornings, Marc Anderton, senior ecologist at Surrey Wildlife Trust Ecology Services, visited Maple Farm to undertake a breeding bird survey. He was accompanied by ecologists who were there to learn the ropes about what a breeding bird survey entails. Marc very kindly let us join the survey so we could shadow and share what we learnt.

Charity Buddy and Youngwilders are very excited to announce the rewilding of Maple Farm, Charity Buddy’s HQ in Surrey!