MOTHS, MUD AND MICROSCOPES: UCL STUDENTS’ BIOBLITZ, 18-21 MAY 2026

In May we welcomed a group of 30 students from UCL and partner organisations to Badgells Wood for a four-day BioBlitz - an intensive effort to record as many species as possible in a short window of time. The weather did its best to dampen proceedings (quite literally!), but it couldn't dampen the enthusiasm. Between showers, the group racked up an impressive 224 observations of 159 plant and animal species.

BioBlitzes are as much about people as they are about wildlife, and this one was a reminder of why. The students threw themselves into everything - sweep-netting, plant identification and, above all, the moth traps.

The mothing was excellent, and the undoubted highlight was recording numerous Beautiful Pearl (Agrotera nemoralis). This is a genuinely scarce species in Britain - historically confined to a handful of Kentish woodlands - but one that is now expanding its range thanks to well managed hornbeam coppice woodland. To find it in good numbers at Badgells Wood is a really encouraging sign for the woodland here. You can read more about the species on the Kent Moths website.

Another cracking find was the Hook-winged Lacewing - a scarce and rather charismatic insect that, at rest, does a remarkably convincing impression of a dead leaf.

Every record from the BioBlitz feeds into our growing picture of the wildlife on the estate and across the wider North Kent Downs. Events like this do double duty: they generate genuinely useful biodiversity data, and they give the next generation of ecologists hands-on experience of fieldwork in a working landscape.

Our thanks to the UCL students and partners for their hard work and good humour in less-than-perfect conditions - we hope to see them back again next year.