WILDLIFE monitoring has always played a pivotal role in our work at Somerset Wildlife Trust.

It is only through careful monitoring that we are able to track any declines in species and, as a result of this, better understand the health of the ecosystems that exist to support them.

At Honeygar, our first ‘wilded’ site — which is being managed very differently to our nature reserves — it is critically important that we are able to monitor any changes taking place within the landscape.

Honeygar is located between the internationally recognised Westhay Moor National Nature Reserve (NNR) and the Catcott Complex in the Avalon Marshes, and it is a major project for the Trust.

Over time, we want to put nature back in charge of the site and help transform what is currently intensively grazed agricultural land into something amazing for both wildlife and people.

Yet for this to happen, we need to be able to properly track the changes taking place.

One way to do this is through audio monitoring.

Back in November 2022, as part of our work to analyse the different species visiting Honeygar, we installed four ‘Song Meter Micro sensors’ from Wildlife Acoustics.

These sensors listen to and record birdsong — and they have been recording sounds almost continuously for seven months.

This data has since been uploaded and processed using artificial intelligence software created by Wilder Sensing, and, incredibly, when set to a 90 per cent confidence interval, it was found that our audio sensors recorded a staggering 323,522 records from just four sensors.

That means over 300,000 instances of birdsong were recorded on Honeygar, and, better yet, we’ve been able to see exactly which birds these were.

Notable species over this period included the cuckoo, snipe, cetti’s warbler, lapwing, and kingfisher — a selection of fantastic birds that have been making their appearance (and singing their songs) at Honeygar.

On this occasion, wildlife monitoring and artificial intelligence have been able to work in tandem to produce some incredibly useful data that will help us understand the changes taking place at Honeygar.

In time, we hope to see more technology working with us to produce the results we need to make a difference for the wildlife and wild places here in Somerset.

Written by Joe Hampson, Somerset Wildlife Trust