@bbowt.bsky.social
We have a wilder vision of more nature everywhere, for everyone. 🔗 linktr.ee/bbowt
If the weather stays cold you can see large flocks of up to 100 birds (their collective name is a ‘charm’) but, as the weather warms, these groups break up as individuals start breeding.
Discover more February wildlife highlights: buff.ly/rm8t2AY
A flock of goldfinches flying over reeds and teasels.
Over winter, small birds like goldfinches form roving flocks that forage together. The bold red mask, golden back, and bright yellow wings of the goldfinch make it one of our most striking birds.
25.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Meet Kim, one of our heroes across the Bernwood Otmoor Ray landscape, who is managing her land to restore nature and reconnect it to the wider countryside.
Find out more about our RBOR partnership project at bbowt.org.uk/rbor
Latest report is that they still need a couple of weeks - and some sun!
23.02.2026 16:00 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Correct - the field's exact history is unknown, some believe they were introduced from Europe by 12th century Crusaders, others believe they are simply escapees from gardens that have become established over 200 years!
23.02.2026 15:38 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Two images of people, in winter clothes and protective headgear, placed side-by-side. On the left, the person is sat on a dead hedge made up of cut branches, a saw in their hand. The person on the right is kneeling at the base of a tree holding a cut branch.
"I have underestimated the team again. This task was supposed to take three sessions. In just one, it is nearly done. We step back to admire our work. The area is brighter, lighter, renewed, and marked by human care."
Read the latest blog from Finemere Wood 👉 buff.ly/flnOxUf
Learn more about their displays in our blog www.bbowt.org.uk/blog/thewild...
22.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Keep your eyes to the sky to catch a glimpse of our magnificent birds of prey displaying high over head.
22.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
In this country, the best display of wild crocuses happens to be at our Inkpen Crocus Field reserve in West Berkshire: each February the crocus field hosts tens of thousands of blooms which can last through to April.
Discover more February wildlife highlights: buff.ly/rm8t2AY
With their delicate pinky-purple petals, vibrant yellow stamens and deep-orange stigmas, crocuses are one of our prettiest spring flowers.
The stigmas of some species are also the source of spice saffron, which is often more expensive than gold.
📸 Pete Hughes
They will need the energy: the next thing they have to do is find a suitable nest site - often a disused mammal burrow - and start building their nest and laying the first of many eggs.
📸 Charlotte Howe, Senior Engagement & Learning Officer at Sutton Courtenay Environmental Education Centre
🐝 Bumblebees are back!
This is the time of year when queen bumblebees, who have spent the entire winter hiding safely underground, emerge from their holes.
🌼 The first thing the queens do on emerging is find spring flowers such as snowdrops, crocuses or daffodils, to drink all the nectar they can.
Two images of goat willow catkins. The left is from February, as the catkins display a soft green and pink. The right is from March, where they have exploded out in vibrant yellow.
Goat willow is a small willow tree found in ditches, reedbeds, wet woodland, and on urban waste ground.
It is one of the UK's commonest willows and is known for the fluffy, silver-grey, male catkins - or 'pussy willows' - that appear in January and turn bright yellow in March.
You get a great rewards package, including:
🎂 Generous annual leave entitlement with paid birthday leave and wellbeing days
🏡 Enhanced maternity, paternity and family-friendly policies
🕒 Flexible working to achieve work-life balance
💰 Pension (salary exchange) with generous employer contribution
We are looking to grow our ecology team!
🌿 Join Future Nature, our Wildlife Trust consultancy, as an Ecologist or a Bat Ecologist and help deliver exceptional projects where every pound of profit goes straight back into protecting and restoring wildlife.
Apply now: www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs
Greenham Common near Newbury is a great place to see all kinds of amphibians, and the pond at Letcombe Valley is a frogspawn hotspot.
👉 Discover more February wildlife highlights: buff.ly/rm8t2AY
🐸 You may see great jelly masses of early frogspawn in ponds in February if the temperature rises enough!
It may look like a huge amount but very little will survive to become adult frogs. Instead much of it will provide food for predators from birds to dragonfly larvae.
You can expect a great rewards package, including:
🎂 Generous annual leave entitlement with paid birthday leave
🏡 Enhanced maternity, paternity and family-friendly policies
🕒 Flexible working to achieve work-life balance
💰 Pension (salary exchange) with generous employer contribution
Café Assistant ☕
Support the daily running of our busy visitor centre café while delivering exceptional customer service to every guest. Apply now: www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs/cafe-as...
If you’re passionate about great service and want to work where people connect with nature, we’d love to hear!
We’re hiring at College Lake Nature Reserve! Join our café team and help nature recover.
We are currently recruiting for two roles:
Café Shift Leader 🌿
Create a welcoming experience, and help ensure the smooth operation of our café. Apply now: www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs/cafe-sh...
👉 Discover more reserves to visit this month: buff.ly/z5xDbiN
17.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Four images stacked vertically. The top is of hazel catkins dangling from bare branches. The image below is of bright yellow gorse flowers. Below that is bracket fungi alongside moss. The bottom image is of an emerging streams surrounded by fallen leaves and moss.
🥾 Thank you to Emmie from the Wildlife Fundraising Central team for sharing her pictures from a winter walk at our Sydlings Copse nature reserve near Oxford!
From dangling hazel catkins and bright yellow gorse, to fungi and moss adorning fallen branches, there's plenty to see even on a drizzly day.
We’re hiring! 📣
Join our friendly team as a Café Assistant and help nature thrive while serving smiles at our busy Nature Discovery Centre café.
Apply online (www.bbowt.org.uk/jobs/cafe-as...) or pop in for an application form! 🌿
A nuthatch perched on the top ridge of a nest box. It is facing downwards with its head tilted up.
🪺 14-21 February is National Nestbox Week!
If you're planning to add a new nestbox to your garden this year and want to find out more, our friends at Vine House Farm can help you out.
👉 buff.ly/my9Jfvw
The water shrew is the largest of the three, and is quite unusual among mammals because it has a venomous bite. The poison in its saliva is strong enough to immobilise frogs and small fish. It can tackle prey up to 60 times heavier than itself, including newts, frogs, crustaceans and snails.
15.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0Common shrews measure from 5-8cm in length, weighing in between 5-14g, while the smaller pygmy shrew can weigh as little as 2g. Despite its small stature, the pygmy shrew is always hungry (we know the feeling) and can eat 125% of its body weight every day!
15.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0🐾 We have three species of shrew in the UK, and all three were spotted at Wells Farm, thanks to camera boxes built by Paul, volunteer warden for Wells Farm and Oxfordshire Mammal Group!
15.02.2026 10:05 — 👍 10 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
This culminates in the famous ‘weed dance’ where both birds fill their bills with greenery before rearing up to meet breast-to-breast, paddling wildly to maintain balance.
👉 Read our blog for more February wildlife highlights: buff.ly/rm8t2AY
💞 Great crested grebes have an elaborate courtship dance!
If you're lucky enough to live close to a pond or lake with these elegant birds, watch as the males and females mirror each other on the water, diving down and rising up in perfect unison.
📸 Andrew Parkinson/2020VISION
Exciting days at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend tackling thick scrub in a south-facing clearing lost to scrub/secondary woodland in the 1970s. The amazing RoboFlail made short work of pulverising followed by volunteers raking up. Scarification should help release special flowers from the seed bank.
12.02.2026 16:53 — 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
