Beautiful Butterfly

Yarner Wood, Bovey Valley and Trendlebere Down, located within the East Dartmoor Woods and Heaths National Nature Reserve, are fabulous hotspots for butterflies! Yarner Wood was one of the first sites to take on the annual recording of butterflies back in 1976, when the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme began. https://ukbms.org/methods Volunteer butterfly surveyors walking the Yarner Wood transect The ‘transect walk’ is quite an undertaking, requiring surveyors to walk a fixed route, in good weather, on a weekly basis betweenRead more

The Fresh Faces of Spring

  Spring has burst into life here at Yarner Wood and along with it comes some fresh new faces within the team. Robyn and James are our one year conservation assistants and Hannah and Lauren will be with us for three months as survey and monitoring trainees. This enthusiastic bunch all have a background in ecology and conservation and are keen to pursue a career in this field. They all share a real passion for nature and will be pursuingRead more

Muir on the Moor: Forest School for College Students

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir Exeter College Apex students recently discovered, debated, tested and explored this concept in great detail when they embarked on a programme of Forest School sessions. Having already been volunteering and gaining work experience at East Dartmoor over the winter, they decided to look at the Reserve in greater depth and take on new and exciting challenges. The JohnRead more

Just another heritage lottery funded training programme…?

Here at East Dartmoor, we are looking for four fresh faces to join the team for a year-long structured training programme. The 22nd February deadline for applications is looming, so why should you put in an application? Isn’t this just another heritage lottery funded training programme? Absolutely not. And here’s why, from the perspective of those who’ve been put through their paces for the last yearRead more