Wildlife survey and research

Wild New Forest undertake specialist wildlife consultancy in and around the New Forest, with a particular focus on birds (contact us for further details). We also co-ordinate and contribute to the survey and monitoring of some of the New Forest's most endangered and elusive species. Our current projects often involve many hundreds of hours of painstaking fieldwork, but we also apply state-of-the-art equipment to gain fascinating new insights into target species. Note that all of our survey and monitoring work is undertaken with the appropriate Forestry England permits and specialist licences (e.g. BTO ringing licences), and we have comprehensive public liability insurance. Some of our active projects are briefly described below, with regular updates featured in our blog.

Hawfinch

The New Forest is one of the last UK strongholds for this declining species, but our surveys reveal an apparently stable population of over 250 pairs - we are now closely monitoring this population and investigating roost distribution and movements (using GPS and radio tracking and colour ringing)

Mammal camera trapping

We deploy infra-red trail cameras (camera traps) to investigate mammal distribution in the New Forest - we obtained the first video footage of 'wild' Pine Martens in the New Forest in spring 2016, and have identified migration corridors for Red Deer stags arriving for the autumn rut

Moth trapping and bat surveys

The New Forest is a national hotspot for moths and bats, but the distribution of many rare and scarce species is poorly understood - we therefore operate moth traps and bat detectors at night, targeting endangered species and priority habitats such as ancient woodland, heathland and bogs

Curlew

The New Forest holds about 40 pairs (10% of the lowland England breeding population) but our surveys have shown rapid decline - we are therefore monitoring the population and studying nest productivity to identify and hopefully mitigate key pressures

Firecrest

This 'climate colonist' first bred in the UK in 1962 (at a site in the New Forest), but has rapidly increased in the last two decades - our survey work documented the increase and was published in the journal British Birds; we continue to monitor this and other woodland bird species to assess long-term change

Ancient trees

Storm-blown_Beech_Mallard_Wood(15-01-20)

The New Forest possibly contains the highest concentration of ancient trees in Europe, with oak and beech trees over 400 years old - we are currently repeating a 1990's survey to see how many of these ancient trees are still standing, measuring their growth, and developing a photographic record