Bio-blitzing, moth magic, a White-clawed Crayfish & a tiny Fire Salamander!


Dear Wild Finca Community,

We hope you had a wonderfully wild weekend! Ours certainly was…

We’ve just had a magical visit from our dear friends Penny and Dave Green, brilliant ecologists and the duo behind Lughurst Ecology. They were in northern Spain for a holiday before heading to us, and together we dove into all kinds of bio-blitzing here at Wild Finca.

Some of you may recognise Penny from her days as Head Ecologist at the Knepp Project (where the seeds of Wild Finca were first sown for us!). We first met her back in 2018 while filming for our Nightingales documentary, and we’ve stayed connected ever since. She now is heading up the ecology side of things at the amazing Wiston Estate.

When they last visited Asturias, Penny joined Luke for Episode 28 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast, where they chatted all things Wild Finca and our evolving vision.

🎧 If you haven’t listened yet, you can find it here:

And the exciting news? They recorded a follow-up episode while they were here! We’ll share it with you as soon as it goes live.

Our new obsession: moth trapping!

One of the biggest highlights of their visit (and there were many!) was our introduction to moth trapping. While we’ve always felt fairly confident in our bird and mammal ID skills, invertebrates have been a bit of a mystery. For a while now, we’ve wanted to better understand the smaller inhabitants of Wild Finca.

Penny and Dave gave us the perfect nudge forward with a beautifully addictive new ritual: setting up a moth trap overnight and discovering its treasures the next morning. As Roan put it:
🪄 “It’s like opening a treasure chest!”

Tiny discoveries down by the stream…

We also took Penny and Dave to explore the latest addition to Wild Finca, our woodland stream. It didn’t disappoint: there, among the moss and pebbles, we spotted the teeniest Fire Salamander we’ve ever seen, as well as a White-clawed Crayfish, a rare and wonderful find!

It’s always such a joy to welcome experienced rewilding eyes and passionate specialists from different fields, to Wild Finca. These visits spark the most wonderful melting pot of ideas, insights, and creativity, and we can’t recommend it enough. We’re eagerly awaiting the full species list Penny and Dave compiled during their stay and look forward to sharing more about their findings in our next Inside Wild Finca session, coming up on the last Friday of the month.

🌿 A big thank you to those of you who’ve already joined Inside Wild Finca, we’re so glad to have you with us! Keep an eye on your inbox, as your very first Wild Finca Ramble with Luke will be arriving at the end of this week.

💚 Not yet a member? You are always welcome to join us on this behind-the-scenes journey of small-scale rewilding, honest reflections, and tangible ideas for your own patch of the wild.

From our wild corner to yours,
Katie, Luke, Roan & Albus
Team Wild Finca 🌿

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