Wild Intrigue

Celebrating wildlife and people in Northern England through experiences, media and projects.

16/10/2026

The evenings are starting to draw in, which means the annual Wild Ouseburn Talk series begins soon! 🌙

Join us at Ouseburn Farm Charity Ltd to hear inspiring insights from rewilders and naturalists.

📅 Thursday 22nd October

First up, join us (Heather and Cain 👋) for Urban Rewilding: From Europe to Ouseburn.

The talk will feature inspiration, discussions and visuals from visits to Spain, The Netherlands, Poland, Germany and throughout Britain, to explore how rewilding efforts have inspired Wild Ouseburn to date - and what the future could look like.

Then we can look forward to two brilliant speakers:

📅 Thursday 26th November
Hepple Wilds: Rewilding Coquetdale with Richard Thompson, Hepple Wilds ecologist

📅 Thursday 17th December
Wild Cities: Journeys Through the Modern Urban Jungle with author Chris Fitch

Each talk begins at 6.30pm, is free to attend, and is open to everyone 🎟️ Visit the link in the comments to RSVP.

📸 Post-industrial rewilding in Amsterdam Noord | Wild Intrigue, 2026

08/10/2026

We're looking forward to returning to National Trust Wallington for our Kids Wildlife Photography event later this month! 🍂

A family experience to explore and capture the astounding beauty of 'every day' nature, and for kids to learn tips in using naturalist skills to take great photos.

This experience coincides with Wallington's Autumn and Nature Photography Exhibition, which you can also explore.

You never know what we might see too... Last week while exploring the beautiful early-autumn Wallington woodlands, I was enchanted when this Red Squirrel crossed my path! Particularly exciting as Red Squirrels are recently recovering on the estate, take a look at the Wallington NT page to find out more about this.

Although Red Squirrels aren't guaranteed on this experience with a group of excited young wild things 😉 there'll be much seasonal wildness to enjoy. - Heather

📆 Thursday 29th October
🎟 Link to tickets in bio. Tickets include complimentary same-day access to NT Wallington!
📱 All camera welcome, including phones (images below taken on iPhone)

28/09/2026

We had a lovely surprise yesterday!

Earlier this year we discovered we were finalists in the BBC Newcastle Make a Difference Awards - in the Environmental category. We were honoured that someone had nominated us!

The award ceremony took place yesterday, and we were declared the ‘winners’! 😮

It was a humbling day, hearing the other nominees’ inspiring work and stories throughout the categories. The north east really is lush, and full of people quietly making the world brighter for one another.

During the ceremony our urban rewilding work was noted, which we undertake together with hundreds of people - who generously share their time to create more biodiverse and intriguing places for us all to enjoy 🌿 This is funded in part through the experiences many of you book, and motivated by the support you all share on here!

So we wanted to share this lovely news, as this recognition belongs to everyone 💛

🤳 A quick, rare selfie (Cain and Heather) at the awards ceremony!

13/09/2026

We’re off on our annual pilgrimage to Europe’s wild spaces 🦅 🦫 🚆

We’ve grown a bit of a tradition where, after our lovely, busy summer, we take some time to rewild ourselves and refresh our inspiration.

This month we’re meeting with urban rewilders in Belgium and the Netherlands, and exploring wonderful wild places in between.

As always, we’ll be bringing what we learn back into our work in Northern England, and will share some of our highlights on socials in time.

While we’re away we won’t be on screens much, so we’re grateful for your patience if you message or email us 💛

We’re looking forward to launching our 2027 experience collection when we’re back in October!

📸 View from Parliament Hill in Hamstead Heath, overlooking the incredible greenery of London, a National Park City to aspire to.

09/09/2026

The next season of Woodland Wildlife Hide dates are now available to book! 🐿️

Nestled in Wild Haweswater’s Naddle Forest, the hide is the perfect base for a comfortable day watching and photographing some of the Lake District’s enigmatic wildlife - including Red Squirrels.

When you book the hide it’s yours to enjoy exclusively for the day, custom-built for up to two people, with features designed following Rewilding Europe’a photography hide specifications.

Dates available from November 2026 to June 2027, book directly on our website.

🛏️ We’ve partnered with The Mardale Inn - Bampton Valley Community Pub to offer gorgeous discounted accommodation during your visit too! Discount code provided upon booking.

25/08/2026

Keep Ouseburn Grubby!

On Saturday we visited Nick at Incubate Printmaking to see the first batch of ‘Keep Ouseburn Grubby’ T-shirts being screen-printed by hand, in his lush Ouseburn studio.

We’re looking forward to seeing them out in the wilds of ‘grubby’ Ouseburn! If you’ve ordered a tee from batch 1 keep an eye on your inbox later this week.

We’ve had a lot of interest in the tees so, if you’d like to order one, batch 2 is now open for orders!

Link in comments 👇

19/08/2026

Have you spotted the world’s fastest animal on the Newcastle-Gateshead Quayside?

An emblem of power and nobility through the ages, the Peregrine Falcon might seem like a difficult bird to discover, but it’s become part of daily life in many cities.

A birds-eye-view of our Quayside transforms bridges and towers into cliffs, the River Tyne into a safe refuge, and the landscape a rich hunting ground to catch prey in incredible 200mph hunting dives 💨

Earlier this year we saw two this Peregrine pair perching together occasionally on bridges; their brown plumage distinctly showing their youth.

Last week, we spent time watching the subadult pair on King Edward’s Bridge from the Quayside footpath, admiring the lush details of their feathers as they preened, moulting into their fresh slate grey, adult plumage 🪶 From this, we estimate they’re around 16 months old.

In the video, the first bird is the female and the second is the male. Note the larger size of the female, and the presence of more brown feathers - these are mainly on her primary and secondary wing feathers.

The male, who carefully follows the flight of a bird in the video 👀 is further along in his moult, with some of his primary feathers notably brown as his back’s turned.

The arrival of this pair is really exciting 🤎 Back in 2023, a different pair nested in the same location and one chick successfully fledged. Since then we’ve only had occasional sightings of Peregrines on the urban Quayside. Birds of prey bring an essence of wildness and intrigue to our cities, and demonstrate a level of health in the ecosystem - we’re very fortunate to share our architecture and skies with them.

We’ll share more about the Peregrines over the coming weeks!

🎥 Phonescoped using Leica Camera optics.

16/08/2026

A new butterfly species for Wild Ouseburn and Newcastle, the Brown Argus! 🎉

Each month we host a Rewilding Session with the Ouseburn Trust Green Team, and yesterday’s task was to collect wildflower seeds from the City Stadium Meadows.

While harvesting the cornfield annuals, a flutter caught our eyes, and we spotted this beautiful butterfly in one of the new patches of meadow.

Over the past couple of days we’ve been to-ing and fro-ing trying to identify this challenging species - and with only one image to go from! Local expert Mike Jeffries, and other local butterfly recorders have explored its fine details too - as the Brown Argus can be very similar in appearance to a female Common Blue!

This afternoon we’ve managed to get some images of the underside of the butterfly’s wings, and we’re exciting to confirm that it is a Brown Argus!

There are just a small handful of previous records along the Northumberland coast, so this is quite a rare butterfly for Northern England!

This afternoon the same, small patch of meadow was visited by Common Blue and Small Copper butterflies.

It’s proper lush to see wildlife finding the City Stadium Meadows after all the incredible work everyone has put in to their creation and management over the past couple of years.

The Brown Argus is the second new species of butterfly in Wild Ouseburn this year - just a few weeks ago, Mike Jeffries also discovered a Gatekeeper in the Ouseburn Farm Charity Ltd fields which have bloomed thanks to their reduced grazing.

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