Life on the Margins

It's amazing what you can find while having a quiet wander along the side of the beautiful flower margins on the top of Bredon Hill at the moment.  Many are situated along side public rights of way so there's no need to trample across farmland to view them.  They are created by cultivating the soil to stimulate the wild seeds to grow that have been dormant in the soil for many years.  But the wild flowers are only part of the benefits, the flowers also encourage millions of insects that in turn provide valuable feed for young farmland birds.

The list of spices very evident is long, from bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies, beetles and other pollinator species.  There were also many insect feeding birds such as Skylarks, Yellow Hammers, Goldfinches Meadow Pipits and Linnets, all feeding in the margins and carrying the feed out into the fields or up into neighbouring trees or hedges, where their nests are located.  You may have seen the small bare patches that have no crop in them which provide landing areas for Skylark and today they were singing with joy, that the sun had finally appeared!

Not all of the margins are this successful; in other margins we have had to mow the margin to stop the weed seeds from becoming fertile and adding to the weed seed bank, which is necessary for the long term benefit of the strip.  We hope that you enjoy walking on the hill and looking at what nature is providing and in order to enhance the benefit please do not let your dogs disturb the birds busily collecting feed for their young, by keeping them under very close control or ideally on a lead.

Preparation for the 2016 Big Farmland Bird Count!

For the third year in a row the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust is running its Big Farmland Bird Count. It's a great opportunity for land owners, farmers and anyone connected with the countryside to get out and count the wonderful array of species that live in our beautiful countryside.  For 30 minutes between the 6th and 14th of February the idea is to get a 30 minute snap shot of what species are on our farms.  The data can then be sent to the GWCT to give a national picture of how these import species farmland bird species are benefiting or otherwise from our countryside management. Are the numbers increasing or decreasing it's very important that we can identify these trends and act accordingly.  Now I for one, am not a brilliant birder or twitcher but I know a man who is!  On a very sunny day last week we hosted a Farmland Bird Identification training session at Overbury sponsored  by BASF with expert training from Peter Thompson.

We had a fantastic turnout with nearly 30 people, starting in the village hall, to hear about the different species of bird, the nesting habitat they need and the food sources for adults and chicks.  After a great lunch we headed out for a bit of a ramble around the vale farm to see what species we could identify.  Considering the noise, chatter and wind I think we did rather well.  In total we spotted 28 different species, many of which are target BAP species (Biodiversity Action Plan) meaning they are under special priority measures to try and look after them.  Many of the Higher Level Stewardship options we have taken up are being used to encourage these species.  Options such as grass margins, unharvested and unfertilised headlands, wild bird mixes, skylark plots and some fallow patches are all important to create habitat and food sources for these birds.  We looked in hedgerows, on grassland, over water, on farm tracks, adjacent to field margins, in arable fields and across game covers to see what was on show.  Eyes and binoculars were pointing in all directions and here's the species list on show that day. We spotted mallard, coot, heron, robin, dunnock, wren, pied wagtail, blackbird, song thrush, redwing, fieldfare, rook, jackdaw, carrion crow, magpie, raven, buzzard, sparrow hawk, yellowhammer (one of my favourites), goldfinch, linnet, chaffinch, skylark, blue tit. great tit, long-tailed tit, pheasant and red-legged partridge.  We are heading out on Thursday morning to put our new identification skills to the test to see if we can beat this impressive list of species.  Many thanks to Peter, to the GWCT and BASF for the event sponsorship as this training will last much longer than just a day in February.  I would encourage everyone who can take part to get out, count some birds and upload the results. It's a very important source of information, helping to prove that we are looking after and enhancing the environment in which we live and work!

Bustling Bramblings

For about the last 6 weeks or so we have had a great flock of LBJ's (Little Brown Jobs) feeding on one of our Higher level Stewardship bird food mixes.  The plot is quite large which is great for these smaller birds offering lots of protection, hidden away in the middle of their very own dinner table.  The size of the block (5acres) is also able to sustain larger numbers of birds for longer periods of time which is another benefit, so they're not using up energy searching out their next meal.  There is also less 'edge effect' of reduced seed yield, usually caused by rabbits nibbling away at the edges.

This mixture consists of Spring barley (60%), Tricticale (15%), Millet (10%), Fodder Raddish (5%) and Mustard (10%), although due to the dry summer when the crop was planted there seems to be a greater percentage of mustard that has survived!

The vast majority of these birds are Bramblings although there are a few Linnets and Chaffinches joining in the flock.  Having walked through the crop to take some video footage here of the flock swooping around there is still some seed left that has not shed yet so I hope that this bird table will continue to deliver the goods for a few weeks to come, while the winter weather is upon us.

Stewardship Update

I thought that I would just take a quick moment to update you on how the various stewardship options have progressed over the dry summer.  On the whole most seemed to have coped very well although some species have rather taken over!  This first wild bird seed mixture is the Norlands field and was planted with feeding Tree Sparrows through the winter months.  The plants include the wonderful Quinoa whose magnificent autumn colours look a real picture at this time of year.  They will produce a vast amount of small seeds from Christmas onwards.

In this field we have planted a pollen and nectar strip next to a winter bird seed mixture aimed at providing nesting cover and food for corn buntings. The mustard that we planted seems to have overtaken the rest of the seed mix which includes, spring barley, triticale and white millet.  Next year I think I will reduce the mixture from 10 to 5%, although who knows in a different spring 10% might have been the right amount.

This is one of my favourite stewardship margins and one that has already produced a real bounty of winter food.  Both of these mixtures were planted before we entered the Higher Level Stewardship and last year the bird food mix fed lots of small birds, including yellow hammers, dunocks and linnets through the winter period.  What I love about this combination of pollen and nectar and wild bird food is the way that it caters for our farmland wildlife completely.  It provides winter food for adult bird survival, pollen and nectar for insects to live on which then become chick feed and there are nesting sites in the tussocky grass margins and hedge bottom on the right hand side.  It will be fascinating to watch these sights develop over time and hopefully reap the benefits for our farmland wildlife.