10 Dec 2025 with Life on the Edge

It has been a busy year for the LotE team, the gorgeous summer we enjoyed meant that we had lots of opportunities to get people out and about exploring the beautiful South Devon coast! 

Over 5400 people have been involved with the project this year.  We have been taking people out to the coast to visit these amazing places for themselves and feel the benefits of being active outdoors and connected to nature.

From local Womens Institute groups, to primary school children, members of the Dementia groups to Young Carers, local farmers to local businesses, university drama students to Play Torbay home educators group, as well as many visitors, residents, parish councils and community groups,  a whole host of people have worked with us over 2025.  

They have been surveying for invertebrates, discovering more about the target species in arts, crafts and educational sessions, as well as helping gather and sow wildflower seeds, planting important food plants for our bees, creating and restoring habitats on larger scale farms and public greenspace as well as planting pocket meadows in hundreds of gardens.  

Volunteers continue to play a vital role in the delivery of the LotE project.

We run monthly volunteer conservation tasks and seasonal surveying days. These are backed up by training sessions to enable volunteers to go out and carry on the good work themselves! In addition, community volunteers are delivering LotE projects with the support of the team and the LotE small grants schemes.

So far this year volunteers have contributed time worth £31,625, with lots of community project hours still to come in! We would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to all of them for their amazing skills and enthusiasm.  

If you would like to volunteer with the project – get in touch, we would love to hear from you! Email us at: [email protected].

Conservation Wins

Our summer and winter surveys are revealing some great news about our target species. All of the following are rare and endangered invertebrates, with South Devon being their stronghold and one of the few places they can be found. 

Over the summer we found a population of Moon spiders on the wave cut platform around Prawle Point – no mean feat seeing as they are just 3mm long! Eagle eyes were needed to spot these fierce miniature hunters as they lay in wait for their favourite meal of ants. 

We observed Long-horned bees at Prawle Point and Horsley cove and discovered a massive population at Gara Rock. We have been trying to find them at other spots on the coast and the search goes on with hints that they have been spotted near to Sunny Cove on the Salcombe estuary. The hunt for Hornet Robberflies continued with numerous sightings around the Erme estuary. Two of our trainees made a vlog about these arial assassins – you can watch it here . 

Our expeditions have turned altogether darker, with night time surveys taking place over November and December for the rare nocturnal Mediterranean Oil beetle. These were led by our conservation trainee Amy! Thank you to everyone who has supported these surveys! 

Landscape Wins

With a year under our belt and a winter of planning, and making connections with landowners, this summer we were able to get stuck into testing seed harvesting methods, logistics and practicalities. This was followed by a busy season of late summer seeding. 

In total this sowing season we managed to plant over 26ha of new donor fields (fields which can be harvested for wildflower rich grassland seed in the future). When we combine with 5ha planted last year we have managed  to get 31% of our 100ha Donor Field creation target completed to date.  

Final Thoughts

With another three years to go, we are excited at the direction LotE is heading in and look forward to seeing you out and about on the South Devon coast in 2026!