Field Notes: Happenings at Glenlude in 2025

Karen and Ellie from our Glenlude team share highlights of another year of growth and restoration at our volunteering hub in the Scottish Borders.

During 2025, 222 volunteers gave us 315 days of conservation work – getting us ever nearer to our goal of creating a thriving mosaic of native habitats at Glenlude.

Our regular Thursday work parties started up at the end of February. Over the year we held 19 work parties, with 27 of our core volunteers giving a total of 111 conservation days.

We focused on essential tree maintenance in our young woodlands, straightened stakes, meshed and replaced lost saplings. We also created a 35-metre boardwalk (pictured below) and replaced the steps and a short section of path to the hut.

In addition, our partners Green Team visited five times and even celebrated their 30^th anniversary on the hill when 40 people planted 216 trees in the Green Team Wild Wood

And we welcomed back regular groups of volunteers from the Jamie’s Wood team – who planted 150 trees – and Phoenix Futures who planted 325 trees in the Phoenix Forest during their annual planting day to commemorate people who successfully completed their Recovery Through Nature programme.

Young people from local conservation charity Bright Green Nature helped with bracken bashing, while groups of students from Portobello High School visited and camped on site – for many it was their first experience of wild camping.

Our corporate members Absolute Escapes (pictured at the top) - who have been supporting our work at Glenlude for nearly a decade - joined us for two days of tree maintenance and fun.

Our 2025 wildlife surveys showed some hopeful signs of recovery at Glenlude. Highlights included:

• Sticky pads on our squirrel feeding boxes picked up signs of red squirrel hair (and no signs of grey squirrel hair!)
• 32 species of birds were recorded on site. We saw a rise in numbers of goldcrests, goldfinches, meadow pipits and skylarks compared to previous years and enjoyed watching eight black grouse lekking on the border of our site.
• Species of butterflies recorded included: green hairstreak; large skipper; brimstone and 12 small pearl bordered fritillary (pictured below) - a species that is declining locally.

And finally, we ended the year on a high when our 13-year partnership with Phoenix Futures won a 2025 Nature of Scotland Health and Wellbeing Award.

A huge thank you for all the work our volunteers put in this year. We will be back in the spring with an exciting volunteering programme for 2026.

• Read a longer illustrated version of Karen and Ellie’s news in their annual newsletter Glenlude Happenings 2025.

Photography by Karen Purvis, Ellie Oakley and Ailsa Colquhoun.