Working Together to Improve Norfolk's Wildlife
Species Monitoring
We have a team of species experts, who specialise in particular taxa, such as birds; butterflies; moths; spiders; small mammals; grasses; flowering plants; mosses; fungi.
We aim to do a baseline survey when we take over the management of a site as this helps to shape our habitat management plan – telling us what we already have on site, and indicating what’s missing. We then monitor over time, to check that we are going in the right direction.
We are always on the lookout for new members of the team, so if you have an interest in any type of wildlife – even if you don’t regard yourself as an expert – let us know.
Species monitors visit our sites as and when it suits them, at various times of the year. They are free to carry out our surveys whenever they choose, with no set level of commitment. They then feed their results back to our Habitat Management Sub-Group which keeps all species records. The full species lists for our sites can be found here.
We have also acquired a selection of species monitoring equipment to allow our volunteers and trustees to get closer to the species that use our reserves, as well as becoming more involved in the collection of data, thanks to a generous grant from Norfolk Community Foundation. The equipment includes a moth trap, bat detectors, pond dipping equipment, butterfly nets, an electronic microscope, a trail camera, hand lenses, and tunnel ink traps.
We have recently founded the Felbeck Trust Bird Club to encourage our supporters to report their bird species sightings.