02/01/21 Farming Today This Week: Rewilding to create a private nature reserve
Jonathan Thomson says he's always had a close bond with the natural world. He grew up on a dairy farm in New Zealand and has dedicated his retirement to creating his own private nature reserve. Six years ago he bought a 25 acre parcel of land in Wiltshire. Underhill Wood had been a llama farm and a commercial woodland. Now with a team of volunteers, he's created a mosaic of habitats: from sedge marsh and meadows, to woodland and hedgerows. He says the bio-diversity has improved enormously and the site is now a haven for barn owls, bats, snakes and kingfishers., He uses it as a place of learning and regularly invites ecologists, school children and insect experts to study the wildlife there.