Sussex Wildlife Trust

14/09/2026

Blooming Octopus! You may have heard about recent blooms in octopus, particularly in south-west England, where there have been a huge increase in sightings and catches 🐙

Marine Conservation Officer, Sarah Ward, shares how to record your sightings in our blog ⬇️

https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/blooming-octopus/

📷© Paul Naylor

How to report your octopus sightings

13/09/2026

Even in slow motion, the Hummingbird Hawk-moth doesn't slow down.

Watch those wings: up to 85 beats a second, hovering at flowers to feed just like its namesake bird. Blink and you'll miss it at full speed.

Have you seen a Hummingbird Hawk-moth this week?

12/09/2026

Huge thanks to artist Minnie Sandbach who has adorned our Eco Hut at our Woods Mill nature reserve with a few cute critters 🐭

📷© Julia H***e

11/09/2026

Plumage of a show girl - voice of nails down a blackboard - meet the most exotic member of the crow family - the autumnal acorn super-stasher - the Jay! One Jay can store up to 5000 acorns in a season. How many Oak trees have grown from one of these we wonder?
📸 Alan Price

10/09/2026

Wilder Horsham District Project Support Officer, Louisa Jones, shares her tips for getting started with monitoring wildlife in your area. Horsham District Council Wilder Horsham District
https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/i-set-up-a-wildlife-surveying-project-from-scratch-heres-what-i-learned

09/09/2026

Meet Amir Alamri - our new IT Assistant, and long term Youth Ranger with the Trust
https://swt.hatchedlondon.com/articles/interview-with-amir/

08/09/2026

Comms Officer Emma shares why she loves being on Bluesky - and urges people to follow Sussex Wildlife Trust & other great wildlife feeds there
https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/nothing-but-bluesky-from-now-on

07/09/2026

We're just in the process of finishing the Autumn/Winter issue of 'Wild Sussex', our magazine that members will get early October. It has a theme of 'the science behind what we do' & features a piece on ponds by Kate Bradbury, plus lots more. Here's a link to our Spring/ Summer issue, that focussed on the beautiful Rye Harbour Nature Reserve & has a fantastic illustrated cover by Ollie Panton. Join as a member & you'll get our twice yearly mag through your letterbox in Oct & April!
https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/get-involved/publications/wild-sussex-april-2026

06/09/2026

Seen any of this clucking beauty? Chicken of the Woods fungi is a distinctive sulphur-yellow colour - hence AKA 'Sulphur polypore'. It grows high on trunks of deciduous trees, such as Oak.
Fungi belong to their own kingdom & get nutrients & energy from organic matter, rather than by photosynthesis. It's often just fruiting bodies or 'mushrooms' that we see, arising from an unseen network of tiny filaments called 'hyphae'. These fruiting bodies produce spores for reproduction, although fungi can also reproduce asexually by fragmentation.
Photo by James Duncan

05/09/2026

This perching beauty is a Whinchat. A summer, transient visitor (or 'passage migrant') to the UK, about to head south for winter. James Tomlinson spotted this one last week.