Our herd of Lincoln Red cattle move through the landscape, grazing the longer grasses and creating space for plants to grow. They rub against trees and shrubs, helping to shape different habitats, and their dung provides food for insects and other wildlife.

Our rare breed Exmoor ponies are busy creating ‘pony lawns’. Unlike our Lincoln Red cows, they use their soft lips to pick out individual plants, nip thistle tops and even tackle the toughest grasses – adding another grazing style to help create a diversity of habitat for wildlife to flourish.

When our beautiful curly-coated Mangalitza pigs and Tamworth pigs rootle the earth in search of food, they reset the land, clearing grass and scrub to allow new trees to set seed and shallow ponds to form. When they consume berries in the autumn, they redistribute seeds in their manure and hair.

Regular visitors to Wilder Doddington, the local roe deer cause small disturbances as they roam, helping to sculpt the shrubland and woodland. Their hooves help to disturb the soil, encouraging plants, insects and birds, while their faeces provide a valuable food source for many invertebrates.

Making their mark on our cow pats, dung beetles help to naturally fertilise the soils. Now we winter some of our cattle outdoors, dung beetles have a steady supply of pats to breed on and feed their young. One of our university students found 17 species of dung beetle, including one from the Geotrupidae family.

These musical maestros are now providing the soundtrack to our summers. Hidden within our long, wild grasses, the soundscape provided by these fascinating insects is unmistakeable. Their presence is a sign of healthy grassland, where varied heights of vegetation provide food, shelter and breeding sites.

After many hours of determined and careful searching by our volunteers, we located a surviving patch of Glow-worms. We are hoping they will be able to slowly expand their population across our rewilding fields. Very slowly! About 5 metres a year!

Thanks to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, we now have five new Great Crested Newt ponds at Wilder Doddington. Each pond has its own hibernaculum, built by our wonderful volunteers, to provide a safe place for amphibians during the colder months.

We have found evidence of all three native species of newt at Wilder Doddington: palmate, smooth and great crested. We hope these new ponds will help their populations grow and encourage them to spread across the landscape.

This is just the beginning for our water-loving friends. Through our Wetter Better project, we have plans to create a further 25 ponds and rewet some of our fields, providing even more wetland habitats for wildlife.