Adiós! Auf Wiedersehen!

Yesterday we waved goodbye to the second of two fabulous exchange students who have been working at Butser for the last few months. Catalina from Barcelona and Dennis from Germany found places with us through the Erasmus programme, and were here to enhance their studies on Dennis’ undergraduate degree in linguistics and Catalina’s in heritage. They have been unbelievably valuable to us and both have created an interactive activity for visitors; Dennis’ is a Saxon word game in the Saxon house and Catalina has made a livestock game in the Iron Age enclosure!We always welcome new volunteers on exchange and work experience schemes, and although we may be a little biased, all of our temporary team members seem to have a fantastic time, learn brilliant skills and make friends with everyone. If you’re interested in joining us for volunteering or internships, please contact us at admin@butserancientfarm.co.uk. Here is Catalina learning woodworking skills to build her game – good luck to both Dennis and Catalina in their future careers!

In the name of pigs...

We’d like to thank all our young visitors over the last few weeks for putting suggestions in the box for naming our new piggies! We are pleased to announce that the names have now been drawn and are as follows…

The Oxford Sandy & Blacks are called Ron (male) and Sugar (female), and the four Saddlebacks are called Banjo (male), Alex (male), Buffy (female) and Rainbow (female). 

The lucky draw has spoken, for good or bad… Make sure you come and visit our lovely pigs in the sunshine this summer! They love attention, although we don’t recommend touching as they may think your fingers are delicious crudités.

Hello June!

After a beautiful bank holiday weekend in the sunshine, the weather has been a little bit miserable this week. It’s certainly not the June we were wishing for! Hopefully it will brighten up throughout the month and we’ll be treated to a delicious English summer – that means at least one day a week with no rain…For some of our farm wildlife, the rain is always a pleasant treat! We found this handsome toad on the steps of our visitor centre, looking a little bemused and covered in cobwebs (where had he been lurking?!). Fortunately we moved him before he was squashed by dog paws or visitor shoes, and he now lives in the wildflower bank among the comfrey flowers.The swallows have now returned to their nests in the eaves of the roundhouse roof; if you look very closely into the darkness you can see them flitting in and out in search of insects. They certainly don’t seem to mind the smoke! We are also on the lookout for our family of stoats, who last year we watched carrying their kits across the site in search of a new den. We managed to get this photo of one mid-leap!

Elsewhere, the site is always filled with the songs of yellowhammers and wrens, and the cackle of woodpeckers as they dip across the downland. We have lots of great events over the next few months, so why not join us and bring prehistory to life amidst the beautiful scenery of the South Downs? Have a look at our events here.