Learn more about the wildlife and wild places in Kent and beyond.
I have been a BeeWalk volunteer with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT) since 2024. I have also been a Kent Wildlife Trust volunteer joining the Pine Marten project at Bedgebury in 2025. I live near Queendown Warren and the South East Area Manager (BBCT) was interested in how a chalk cliff area traditionally managed for butterflies supported bumblebees in this rare habitat.
Liz & Steve Dallison have been involved with KWT since 2010 and begun livestock checking around 4 years ago. In this blog, they talk about the best bits and challenges the work brings!
The invertebrate sorting volunteers are the unsung heroes of the Wilder Blean project - working hard over the winter months at Tyland Barn to ID & record West Blean & Thornden Wood's insect species.
If December was a merry berry month for humans celebrating mid-winter festivities, January and February are serious berry months for birds and mammals aiming to survive winter...
In this guest blog, member Joanna Boult talks about what membership means to her and her family.
We have had the driest spring since 1956, with river and stream flow already well below average for the time of year, a worry for everyone. Area Manager Ian Rickards reports that “this crazy weather has been beneficial for some insects, but the vegetation is already struggling, which will have a knock-on effect other insects later in the year. Water levels are dropping dramatically, with ponds and water bodies drying out very quickly.” The livestock have water troughs but the thin layer of peat in the bogs can dry out easily and be eroded by wind when exposed as plants adapted to damp conditions wither. The successive broods of nestling birds mostly eat insects and larvae, which provide moisture as well as protein, so they are also at risk.
Volunteer, Margery Thomas, explores winter on Hothfield Heathlands - one of Kent's last four valley bogs and one of its few remaining fragments of open heath.
At Kent Wildlife Trust, our volunteers are one of our most precious resources in the journey to create a #WilderKent. Without their passion, dedication, and tireless efforts, so much of what we achieve wouldn’t be possible.
