Ever heard of a mast year? We’ve had reports from across Cornwall of trees and hedgerows bursting with acorns, apples, berries and nuts - far more than usual. And that’s because 2025 is what’s known as a mast year. A mast year happens when trees produce an unusually large crop of seeds and fruits all at once. We don’t understand fully why it happens, but it’s thought to be nature’s clever way of ensuring future generations. By overwhelming seed-eating animals one year, like squirrels, jays and d

Come with us on a dormouse survey! Conservation officer Laura spent autumn checking boxes put up on our nature reserves to monitor dormouse populations. As a licenced surveyor, Laura checks for the presence of dormice and their nests. When they’re found, they are sexed and weighed and this data is input into the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme. Sometimes other residents have made their homes in the boxes, like the woodmouse in the clip. Why do we do these surveys? Dormice populations have