An enormous annual count-up of farmland birds returned to its roots at this time as farmers met up on the Suffolk web site the place it began a decade in the past.
Lodge Farm at Westhorpe, close to Stowmarket, supplied the launchpad for the primary Game and Wildlife Conservation Group (GWCT) organised Big Farmland Bird Count in 2014.
And it returned to the identical location on Friday, February 2 – because the annual count-up continues to realize momentum.
Over the primary two weeks of February, hundreds of farmers, land managers and chicken fanatics throughout the UK will take half an hour out to watch and file the wild birds that share their land.
The knowledge is collected – and is building an image of how wildlife is absolutely faring on farms within the UK – in addition to how nicely varied government-funded farm conservation schemes are working.
To mark the beginning, farming cousins Patrick and Brian Barker welcomed farmers again to their business farm – which has gained plenty of conservation accolades – to indicate how they had been serving to birds survive the winter ‘starvation hole’ and go into the spring able to breed and flourish.
A pink kite and flocks of yellowhammers delighted visitors as they had been taken on a farm walk the place they had been proven a bunch of measures that the Barker household employs to encourage birds onto the farm.
The walk was led by Patrick Barker, GWCT adviser Roger Draycott and RSPB chicken professional Mark Nowers.
Hedgerow consultants Richard Negus and Richard Gould had been available so as to add their experience together with Natural England rural agronomy professional David Whiting, and Jim Egan of Kings Crops, which provides wild chicken seed and sport combination.
Last yr, greater than 1,700 farms took half within the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Big Farmland Bird Count. More than 460,000 birds of 149 totally different species had been recorded throughout over 1.5 million acres of farmland.
Visitors to Lodge Farm heard how the High Suffolk Farm Cluster – which incorporates Lodge Farm – is bringing collectively farms to offer a patchwork of assist for wildlife and has attracted assist from Nestlé-Purina.
The annual Big Farmland Bird Count occasion has change into a “actual characteristic” of the farming calendar, stated Roger Draycott.
“This is the time of yr when birds actually need us essentially the most,” he stated. “It’s the time of of yr when farmers have a little bit of respite as nicely.”
With knowledge gathered now over 10 years, they had been beginning to produce some actually fascinating outcomes, he stated.
It confirmed that farmers who adopted two government-funded choices aimed toward serving to chicken populations had been seeing as much as 4 occasions as many yellowhammers on their farms, he stated.
Patrick stated they’d been adopting measures diligently on their 545ha farm from the beginning – they usually had been reaping the rewards.
“We work actually onerous simply to create the habitat,” he stated. As nicely as hedgerows and margins, the farm has sown an space of winter cowl, which is able to keep in place over two years.
Recently inside the cluster a white-tailed sea eagle – a Dutch ringed chicken, hen harrier, gray partridge, linnet, yellowhammer and turtle dove have been recorded.
Ed Bullock – whose household runs a dairy and arable operation at Cotton and Mendlesham – stated his 600-acre farm was in a mid-tier Countryside Stewardship scheme they usually had been going right into a Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme and performing some supplementary feeding.
“We are doing quite a lot of it already. We are a part of the (High Suffolk) cluster and I used to be involved in studying extra and seeing it in apply as a result of the Barkers have been doing it for a very long time,” he stated.
“Obviously there are quite a lot of birds right here – they’ve given them habitat.”
Since going into Countryside Stewardship three years in the past they had been seeing extra birds. “It’s rewarding,” he stated.
The GWCT Big Farmland Bird Count runs from February 2 to 18.
Signing up for the rely is free and no specialist data or gear are required. To discover out extra go to www.bfbc.org.uk.
