Luccombe and Dunsbury: a rewilding story – with National

LUCCOMBE AND DUNSBURY: A REWILDING STORY

with National Trust Isle of Wight

Nestled beneath Ventnor Downs, and looking out over the sea, is Luccombe Farm. In the past it was farmed intensively, but a new management regime introduced by the National Trust will make it a haven for wildflowers and butterflies, bees and birds.

In 2018 a team of rangers and volunteers painstakingly collected native seed from nearby National Trust land and spread it to the winds at Luccombe to help reseed the landscape. As these fields gradually become more flower-rich, the annual hay cut that takes place each July will be phased out. Instead, the fields will be managed by grazing with Short Horn cattle and Hebridean sheep, maintained at the right levels to improve biodiversity in the long term.

The results have already been seen.

In 2019, several thousand bee orchids and hundreds of pyramidal orchids covered one of the chalky fields in a mass of flowers. 165-hectare Dunsbury Farm in

West Wight is undergoing a similar transformation. Intensively farmed until it was purchased by the Trust in 2015, its ploughed fields have been taken out of crop production and allowed to go fallow, to reduce artificial nutrients and stabilise the soil. Already nature is starting to reclaim the landscape. The first plants to appear were deep-rooted bristly oxtongue, hawkweeds and sow thistles, which broke up the compacted soil, encouraging worms to aerate and enrich the soil. Grazing is next, using herbivores to create a landscape of open grassland, with patches of scrub and woodland. They’ll spread seed in their coats and in their dung, which provides homes for insects and in turn food for birds and bats. There’s a good network of paths, so you can see some of the changes if you take a wander. You’ll hear more skylarks and yellow hammers singing, and there is hope that visiting swallows will breed soon. Just like at Luccombe they’re already seeing results: last winter Dunsbury was visited by hen harriers and short eared owls, hunting over the fields that are now abundant with small mammals that have set up home in this everwilder landscape.