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Warleigh is home to a wide range of habitats, from broadleaf woodland, lakes, streams and wood pasture, to a range of estuarine habitats on the Tavy. We are very lucky to therefore be home to some incredible biodiversity, and we are constantly looking for ways to improve this year on year.
Sightings at Warleigh include:
Otters, bats, king fishers, swans, Canadian and Egyptian geese, curlew, oystercatcher, tawny and barn owls, roe, fallow and muntjac deer, little egret, hedgehog, osprey, raven, buzzard, kestrel, polecat, stoat, weasel, red fox, badger, brown hare, shrews, voles, hazel dormouse, harvest mouse, grey squirrel, cormorants, great crested and little grebes, to name just some of the larger things.
Given that one oak tree can be home to 2,300 different species, this list is of course not representative of everything that can be found at Warleigh – we are also fans of the small and seemingly invisible beings, and hope you are too!
Some of our recent work to encourage more biodiversity and healthier ecosystems on the farm includes:
Our long term vision is for the whole farm to be as biodiverse as possible, and as such we are exploring how we can change our farming methods and long term plans to make this dream a reality. We will be updating this site and social media pages on the progress of this project, so follow us to see how our regeneration journey goes!
We hope Warleigh can become a place where people feel inspired by the diversity, beauty and abundance of the landscape, and can learn ways that they too can make a positive difference to the natural world.
We have set up a number of wildlife trail cameras across the farm to enable closer monitoring of our incredible biodiversity, and to use these as part of our educational programme and outreach work. We hope you’ll enjoy seeing the things they discover, and do follow us on social media to stay updated on sightings!
Watch this space for sightings of magnificent ospreys who fish in the Tamar and Tavy estuaries, and can often be seen in the area from August-October, while on their migration to West Africa. We are hoping that through our Osprey Project we will encourage them to use the 3 new nests to breed soon! If that happens, these cameras will be busy from March-October!
Kestrels are fantastic birds of prey known for their hunting technique of hovering in mid-air above their prey before diving rapidly down onto it. We are hoping to have a resident kestrel in our new nest box soon! So far we have had a few smaller visitors…
This camera is used to explore varied habitats across the farm, and has had some brilliant sightings so far, including a pair of otters and a swan vs goose stand-off!
We’ve been following our Swan nest on the main lake at Warleigh Farm and now you can too!
Ospreys have been sighted at Warleigh for over 35 years. Every year they spend 2-3 months here from August- October, while on their migration to West Africa. They fish in the Tamar, Tavy and the lakes at Warleigh.
However, due to persecution, osprey breeding territory has gradually receded to Scotland, and now there are only five known nesting sites across England and Wales, and none in the South West. However, the research is suggesting that we should start to see ospreys spreading out across the south coast very soon, as long as projects like this are taking place.
We are so excited to have launched the ‘Tamar and Tavy Osprey Project’ here at Warleigh Barton Farm! Founded by Elsa Kent and Max Barker, this project came to life thanks to a deep passion for nature, and by closely observing the ospreys visiting Warleigh over a number of years. This prompted the question; how can we help these birds further?
We learnt about the difficulties ospreys have had breeding across England and Wales, and so we decided to speak to experts and see if our farm would be a suitable place for nest building. We were so excited to learn from the brilliant Jason Farthers at Wildlife Windows (who has set up a great number of osprey nests across the UK), that there are 3 locations across the farm which could work well and set about applying for funding to make this project happen. We were keen to combine the osprey work with our vision for better environmental education across our local communities, and so our project has three key themes: osprey specific work, regeneration across our farm landscape, and education/outreach.
With huge thanks to funding being secured from the Farming In Protected Landscapes Scheme, we have been enabled to construct three osprey nests with trail cameras, and carry out a wide variety of regeneration activities across the farm, along with development of our educational work and facilities. We are hugely excited to monitor the ospreys and are very hopeful that in the not-too-distant future, we may have a breeding pair at Warleigh – follow our social media to stay updated!
Our Tamar and Tavy Osprey Project film will be going live soon!
Ospreys are magnificent fishing hawks with white bodies and striking yellow eyes, that are found on every continent except Antarctica. They are exclusively fish eating and will use their long legs and sharp talons with a reversible outer toe to snatch prey right out of the water.
Ospreys will eat pretty much any fish that they have access to but prefer those in the 150-300g weight range. They catch fish by darting downwards towards their prey, tucking their wings in close to their body and diving, talons first, into the water. They enjoy both fresh and saltwater fish and hunt in a beautifully diverse range of locations, from far out at sea and the winding estuaries of the world, to lakes and even small ponds if the food is suitable.
Most of the global population breed in the northern hemisphere, due to the longer daylight hours in the summer to fish and gather food for their family and the smaller number of predators. They then set off on their migration south for winter, where adults reclaim their feeding territories from the previous year and juveniles migrating for the first time search for their own.
They are wonderfully intelligent birds, with a fishing success rate of up to 70%, one fish in every four dives. There is thought to be around 40-50,000 pairs worldwide, with Sweden having the largest population with up to 4,100 pairs.
Although they don’t have many predators, and they are widely distributed around the world, ospreys became extinct in the UK in 1847 due to persecution. Despite remaining in Scotland for a while longer, their population reached such low levels that they were no longer recognised as a breeding bird, with the last known pair breeding at Loch Loyne in 1916.
Fortunately, Ospreys made a natural comeback in Scotland, with the first known pair setting up a territory and nest at Loch Garten near Inverness in 1954. From there, the population slowly increased, with help from nest protection and public engagement initiatives, including “Operation Osprey” led by George Waterson, the then Director of RSPB Scotland, at Loch Garten. Despite these positive steps, populations remained low as egg-collection was still prevalent, especially as the Osprey eggs now had increased rarity. The population growth was further slowed through pesticide use, including DDT, which affected the quality of the eggs laid by the Ospreys. Only after harsher consequences for egg-collection and the ban on DDT in 1972, did the Osprey population in Scotland properly make a comeback, and by the 1990s there were over 60 pairs.
There are now approximately 300 breeding pairs across the UK, with the large majority of these being in Scotland. The nearest nesting site to Warleigh is in Poole Harbour. Ospreys don’t like to make their own nests, and so we hope that by providing these for them in specifically selected locations, we will encourage them to breed in the South West once again.
A Conservation Message
As Warleigh is surrounded by waterways and home to a series of lakes, the ospreys appreciate the varied fishing opportunities here, especially as they prepare for the next leg of their migration to West Africa. However, healthy fish populations are completely dependent on ecosystem health, and as such, polluted waterways could pose a threat to this whole interlinked food chain. Ospreys are a bioindicator species, meaning that seeing them breed successfully is a sign of ecosystem health, and so to achieve our goal of breeding ospreys across the South West, we need to ensure a holistic conservation message and action plan. As part of this, we must therefore strive to protect our waterways from sewage and chemical discharges.
You can find out more about water quality and ocean activism by visiting the surfers against sewage page. Download their app to see the latest updates on illegal discharges into our waterways.
With huge gratitude to our funders, the Tamar Valley National Landscape through the Farming in Protected Landscapes Scheme.
A 480-acre arable and livestock farm nestled in the heart of the Tamar Valley Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in Devon. At Warleigh Barton you’re not only immersing yourself in nature, you’re supporting a family-run business truly dedicated to farming and working the land in harmony with nature.
Warleigh Barton, Tamerton Foliot, PL5 4LG
Telephone: 07969 070862
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Environmental education and outreach enquiries:
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