Wild Martins Farm

Fifteen acres of wildlife to explore.

A living field guide to the birds and wildlife guests and the farm team see and hear at Martins Farm in Frant, East Sussex.

Included with every stay

No tour. No special permission.

The Oast is your private home for the stay, and the full fifteen acres of Martins Farm are open for you to enjoy. Run, play, picnic, wander the fields and listen for wildlife: it is part of staying here.

The Oast garden is fully enclosed. Across the wider estate, please keep dogs on a lead because deer and other wildlife may be moving through the fields. The neighbouring parkland is private.

Old apple orchard and long grass meadow in summer light at Martins Farm

Four places to pause

A field map for ears and eyes

This is not a promise that a wild thing will appear on cue. It is a gentle guide to the broad parts of the estate where the farm's regulars have already been seen or heard.

The old orchard

Pause beneath the apple trees for robins, blue tits, great tits and wrens.

The long meadow

Look up for buzzards circling on warm afternoons and swifts on clear summer evenings.

The yard and barns

Swifts pass low over the yard in summer; carrion crows keep watch from the roof.

The field edge

Stand still at first light or dusk. Deer may cross from the neighbouring parkland.

A broad listening map, not a navigation plan. Wildlife locations are deliberately approximate, and the neighbouring parkland is not part of the estate.

Through the year

The same walk, four different soundtracks

Spring

The volume rises

Great tits change the year's rhythm with their two-note song, while robins and wrens work the hedges and orchard.

Summer

Watch the air

Swifts return from May to August, low over the yard on clear evenings. Buzzards circle above the fields on warm afternoons.

Autumn

Edges and first light

The swifts have gone before the apples are ready. Crows work the field edges, and deer are best watched quietly at dawn or dusk.

Winter

Never entirely silent

Robins sing through winter. Blue tits, great tits and the remarkably loud wren remain among the old trees and hedges.

Field instruments

Listen up. Then look down.

Wild Martins Farm brings the guest-made observations together. One instrument is for birds in the air and hedges; the other measures how much of the High Weald has attached itself to your boots.

Field instrument 01

Winston's Mud Index

One to five muddy paws, aggregated from approved guest walks across today, week, month and quarter. Useful, honestly counted and named after an unreliable dog.

Read today's ground

Field instrument 02

Winston's Birdsong Walk

A family checklist of the birds already recorded here. Use Merlin as a listening aid, confirm what you can, and keep the first version private on your own device.

Begin listening

Field instrument 03

Night Watch

Five quiet minutes after dark. Log the shape of a sound before trying to name what made it, with uncertain observations welcomed rather than corrected.

Make a night note

Winston’s Mud Index

How much of the estate you will take home

Guests rate the ground one to five muddy paws after a walk. Every published figure is the aggregate of all approved reports in the period — never one person’s verdict — and five paws is Doing a Winston.

Open the Mud Index

Report your own walk there in under thirty seconds.

This week

The reading is unavailable just now.

Pink sunset clouds over the paddocks and timber field gate at Martins Farm in Frant, East Sussex. — Last light over the paddocks at Martins Farm, Frant, East Sussex — August 2026.

Field instrument 03 · Night Watch

What did you hear at night?

Step into The Oast garden, wait for your eyes to settle and give the estate five quiet minutes. Describe the sound before trying to identify it. There is no need to cross the fields or approach anything after dark.

Tawny owls are characteristic of the wider High Weald, but they are not yet a confirmed Martins Farm record. An honest “not sure” is more useful than a confident guess.

Tonight I heard

A short sound note

Saved on this device only · 0/240

Field guide

What to look and listen for

Seen and heard at Martins Farm

Recorded here by the people who live on the estate.

BuzzardButeo buteo: All yearBroad-winged and unhurried over the fields, often circling on a warm afternoon. Listen for the thin mewing call before you find the bird.
SwiftApus apus: May to AugustBack from Africa for the short summer, screaming low over the yard on clear evenings. Gone again before the apples are ready.
RobinErithacus rubecula: All yearThe bird that supervises any digging. Sings through the winter, which is why the garden is rarely completely silent.
Blue tit and great titCyanistes caeruleus, Parus major: All yearConstant in the hedges and the old apple trees. The great tit's two-note song is one of the first sounds of the year to change.
WrenTroglodytes troglodytes: All yearTiny, brown, and far louder than it has any right to be. Usually heard from deep inside a hedge rather than seen.
Carrion crowCorvus corone: All yearOn the field edges and the barn roof, in pairs. The estate's most reliable commentary.
Deer: All year, best at first lightCrossing in from the neighbouring parkland at dawn and again at dusk. Stand still at the field gate and wait rather than walk towards them.

Wider High Weald

Characteristic of this landscape rather than recorded on the farm — worth knowing if you are walking further afield.

Tawny owlStrix aluco: All year, loudest autumn and winterA woodland bird of the wider Weald. The call-and-answer between two birds is what people mistake for one owl.
NightingaleLuscinia megarhynchos: April to JuneThe South East holds a large share of the British breeding population, in scrub and coppice. A reason to walk a Weald reserve at dusk in May.
Fallow deerDama dama: All year, rut in OctoberLong established in the parkland estates of this landscape. Autumn is when they are heard rather than seen.

Deer grazing beneath an ancient oak in High Weald parkland at first light

Look, listen, leave it wild

The field code

Walk slowly, stop often and let the wildlife come into view.
Keep dogs on a lead across the wider estate: deer and other wildlife move through the fields.
Watch from a distance. Never approach a nest, pursue deer or play recorded calls back to birds.
Share the species and the season, never an exact nest or resting place.

The next chapter

A record that grows with every stay

We are preparing anonymous, checked guest tallies and a moderated farm gallery. Nothing will publish automatically, and exact nest or resting places will never appear on the map.

Entries are not open yet. The birdsong walk above works now without asking for a name, email or photograph.

Annual award

Wild Martins Farm Photograph of the Year

A judged wildlife photograph made on the estate, with careful rules for disturbance, location and permission.

Winston's choice

Best Farm Dog Photograph

A second judged prize for the dogs who enjoyed the fifteen acres most photogenically. No public popularity contest required.