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About three weeks late actually!  Today I did the first of two scheduled visits to count birds as part of the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and I've usually done it at the beginning of May. 

The BBS provides the information on which much of our information on changes in common breeding birds is based.  Volunteer observers, like me, make two visits in spring/summer to a 1km square and record all the birds on each of two 1km transects.

This is the fifth year I have covered this particular square - a potentially dull area of arable crops with a green lane cutting through the farmland.  But nowhere is dull when you get to know it.  It's because I can compare this visit with previous ones that makes it much more interesting for me - and the fact that we can compare this year's visits with earlier years across over 1000 randomly-selected sites across the UK that makes it such a powerful monitoring tool.

It was a sunny morning with a light easterly wind - a heavy dew soaked my shoes within minutes of starting.  Not surprisingly, I didn't see another person.

It all seemed pretty birdless to me.  There were plenty of chaffinches and wrens, and a few skylarks but not as many as usual, I thought.  The odd yellowhammer.  A reed bunting in the oil seed rape.  And a cuckoo - I don't think I've heard many of those here.

As I squidged back in my soaking shoes just after 07:00 it felt like a job well done but I was fairly sure that bird numbers were down on the usual counts. A painted lady flew past - an early riser for an insect!

But when I got home, entered the data online, and looked at the counts from previous years I cheered up a bit.  The numbers weren't actually very different from the average of the past four years!  That's the great value of well-designed and documented surveys rather than relying on the unreliable memories of individuals.  Whitethroats may be down a bit (although lots of people tell me that they have more than usual!) but I have already this year seen more great-spotted woodpeckers than in the previous four years combined, today's cuckoo was the second since I started and today's mistle thrush was the first ever.  Let's see what the second visit in three weeks time will bring.

But even if bird numbers haven't declined since last year, this is still a walk which delivers rather little wildlife.  The birds, wild flowers and interesting insects are all pushed to the sides of the enormous fields into the poor, unmanaged hedges.  There is no evidence of any wildlife management or deployment of environmental schemes to help nature here.  It feels like what it is - a walk around the factory floor of a highly efficient industry.  This industry's products are commodities - wheat and rape seed.  Wildlife here has to cling on as best it can - it isn't being given much help.

There is a potentially very good piece of European legislation called the Water Framework Directive which is being implemented in a sadly unambitious way in England and Wales.  We'd like you to tell the Environment Agency about the state of a river that you know.  Already 600 people have responded to our call to speak out for rivers they care about.  If you haven't done so yourself then you have until 22 June to make your views known.  Visit Our Rivers and have your say - speak out for otters, dragonflies, water voles, kingfishers and fish! And why not do it today?

The Our Rivers campaign is a joint one between the RSPB, WWF, the Angling Trust and the Association of Rivers Trusts.

You may have noticed - there is the most stupendous influx of painted lady butterflies happening right now.  Once you realise - you'll see them everywhere!

I saw my first of the year on Sunday (two at Stanwick Lakes in Northamptonshire) and have seen lots every day since.  On Monday afternoon I was at Salcey Forest (again in Northamptonshire) and visited the tree-top walkway - and there were painted ladies flying rapidly northeast at tree-top height at the rate of about one a minute.  Yesterday in London I saw two flying along Victoria Street.  There are lots in the gardens of The Lodge here in Bedfordshire and they were the main topic of conversation amongst RSPB staff at lunch time.

These are migrants - they've come from north Africa - and this year is one of those exceptional years when painted ladies are everywhere.  Butterfly Conservation is tracking the migration closely and would like your help in recording the sightings http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/article/9/100/butterfly_migration_is_biggest_for_years.html .

When you buy a loaf of bread in the shops you've already paid for part of it - let me explain.

At the RSPB’s arable farm in Cambridge, Hope Farm, we farm the land productively and efficiently for food but have also doubled the numbers of farmland birds over the last 10 years.  We’ve been able to do this by using our knowledge of birds and their needs and benefitting from payments from environmental schemes that are open to all UK farmers (though the details differ in each UK country).  By belonging to the English Entry Level Scheme we get paid for creating beetle banks, creating skylark patches in the middle of fields, creating nectar-rich wildflower field margins and managing the hedgerows well.  As a result, yellowhammers, skylarks and linnets have increased dramatically in numbers. And the cheque that we get from the taxpayer (so thank you for contributing!) comes to a little over £5000 per annum for our 180ha of land.
 
Now there are about 4 million hectares of broadly similar arable land across England growing wheat, barley, oilseed rape etc and if all these farmers were doing the same as we are then farmland bird numbers would be on the up and up – but they aren’t.  Is this because farmers haven’t joined the schemes?  Partly – because the coverage in England for all the environmental schemes is about two thirds of eligible land but if two thirds of farmland is already in the schemes and yet farmland bird numbers keep bumping along at a depressingly low level what's going wrong?  Why aren't the environmental schemes as effective on the average farm as they are on the RSPB’s farm?  There could be many explanations but I think it comes down to the fact that not all farmers are bird experts - some are, but certainly not all!   

At Hope Farm we have paid great attention to providing the 'Big Three' needs of farmland birds - insects in summer to feed to young birds, seeds to provide energy to get through the winter and safe nest sites.  And it has worked, so that's why we invite lots of farmers to come and see what we've done, and advise us how to do better, and why we have a network of farm conservation advisors across the UK to help more farmers do even more for wildlife. 

We are proud to work with about 4000 farmers a year who are making real contributions to wildlife recoveries like we do at Hope Farm yet, whatever the explanation, the schemes are not yet delivering enough birds on the ground to allow the Westminster Government to meet its target of halting farmland bird declines by 2020.  With this amount of money it should be very easy to do much better much quicker!  No doubt the Treasury will have its eyes on the environmental scheme budgets in future unless they are tweaked to be more effective.

But then again, maybe not, as the environmental payments are small beer in the big scheme of things - even in the big agricultural scheme of things.  For Hope Farm we get another cheque each year from the taxpayer - this one replaces the subsidy payments of the old days but is essentially a payment from the taxpayer (thank you again for contributing!) to farmers for being farmers.  This cheque is a big one -  just under £32,000 per annum!  We get six times as big a payment for being farmers as we get for being wildlife-friendly farmers - that seems a bit odd!  And provided we stick to the law, the big cheque will keep arriving every year however well or badly we farm. 

Agriculture is still a heavily subsidised industry - like almost no other.  When you buy a loaf of bread you've already paid for some of it through your taxes.  But farming is unique in that as well as the products it can sell (like bread) it provides lots of things that we value - landscape, access to the countryside, drinking water, wild flowers, bumble bees and the song of the skylark.  That's the main justification for continuing to put so much public money into agriculture.  But only if those public benefits are delivered?

Your comments would be appreciated - from farmers and non-farmers alike.

A letter in today's Guardian is signed by a wide range of wildlife conservation organisations, including the RSPB, and makes it clear that the NFU's 'voluntary' approach to replacing set-aside will not deliver for wildlife.  Will Hilary Benn chooose the wildlife-friendly, science-based, rational, effective and cheaper option - or not?

Today sees the publication of three lists of UK birds - red, amber and green. The red species are not redshanks, red-breasted mergansers and robin redbreasts but are those species which are most threatened in the UK. 

The big news is that the cuckoo is red-listed for the first time because it has declined in numbers so rapidly – by 61% in the last 25 years.

And people do notice - last weekend, at a family party, an elderly countryman told me that he hadn't heard a cuckoo yet this year and how sad a thing that was.  The loss of the cuckoo is a loss of part of our cultural heritage - like losing literature or music or paintings.  For generations, Europeans have waited for the cuckoo as a sign of spring and greeted its return with pleasure.  Michael McCarthy, the Environment Editor of The Independent newspaper has written a book on this theme - 'Say goodbye to the cuckoo'.

The cuckoo is one of a number of summer visitors to the UK which are declining in numbers (others include yellow wagtail, wood warbler, turtle dove and spotted flycatcher) and we think their populations are declining across much of Europe.  Maybe their wintering grounds on the far side of the Sahara are less suitable now or maybe Europe’s farmland is less insect-rich than it was.  RSPB scientists are trying to figure out the reasons.

But let's celebrate a success.  As the cuckoo gets on to the red list the stone curlew is down-listed from red to amber thanks to the efforts of numerous farmers who have made space for stone curlews on their land. This really is a success story - a species whose population was in rapid and long term decline is now doing well, although it is still a rare bird, because clever research led to effective action by hundreds of individuals.  It shows what can be done when conservationists and farmers work together - as we have for many years!  I expect the media coverage will stress the cuckoo much more than the stone curlew so let's just celebrate the fact that through working together a lot can be achieved.

But, there's no getting away from it, overall, the red list is growing, the amber list is growing and so the number of UK bird species about which we have no worries at all is shrinking.  It's a tough world out there for nature and that's why nature needs a voice and the RSPB strives to get nature a better deal through buying and managing land, working with sympathetic landowners, lobbying governments and generally being on Nature's side.

And when you go out into the countryside – look out for those red cuckoos.

...there will probably be more media coverage for the launch of the new red list of UK birds tomorrow, but if Man U win then we'll get fewer TV and radio slots!

Tomorrow will see the publication of revised lists of birds of conservation concern - the first revision of these lists for five years.  Are there more or fewer declining and threatened bird species now than five years ago?  Which species have moved from red to amber and which have gone the other way? And which familiar species has declined so much that it is an addition to the red list?  Visit this blog, get a newspaper and listen to the radio to find out.

Birds of Conservation Concern is compiled by a large range of organisations including the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology, the Countryside Council for Wales, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Natural England, Northern Irleand Environment Agency, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust.

I am much more aware of my carbon footprint than I used to be - and I hate waste.  So that's why I turn off lights wherever I go if they aren't needed.  Last week I turned off some lights in the Royal Society's building before I gave a talk there; last year I amazed a group of environmentalists by scrambling on the floor to turn off some lights in 10 Downing Street after a meeting; and I once stopped giving a talk at a conference until some lights had been turned off in the room! 

Will this make a difference?  Of course it will, but of course only a small one.  However, the turning off of unnecessary lights seems to me to be symbolic of what we need to do - let's start with the easy things, that won't hurt us much, that actually save us money and that are completely within our own control.  We will have to do more - much more - but if we can't even do this then we are going to have a tough time making the necessary changes to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.

So each time I enter the communal entrance of the building where the RSPB's London Office is situated I turn off some lights.  However, I often find that someone has turned them on again a bit later in the day - and this war of the lights seems like a stalemate.  I think I am outnumbered!  I once followed a lady into the building who turned on the lights (that I had turned off a few minutes earlier as I went out for a coffee!) and said to her companion 'Someone keeps turning these lights off'.  A few paces behind her I turned them off again and said 'Yes, it's me!  I'm trying to do my bit to save the planet!'.  She looked nonplussed but didn't hit me.

It takes a certain amount of nerve to go around being a light extinguisher - so I'd value your support.  Will you join me and turn off the occasional light even if people think you are a little bonkers?  Post a comment on this blog on whether you will join me and on how you get on  - I'd like to think that I'm not alone. But maybe I am!

Another walk at Stanwick Lakes today - well if you can't get out lots on a sunny May Bank Holiday weekend when can you?

I always think there are 'the basic eight' warblers.  These are those that you might reasonably expect to see on a May walk in most of southern Britain - chiffchaff, willow warbler, sedge and reed warblers, blackcap and garden warbler and the two whitethroats (common and lesser). Through the year I see all of these on my regular patch.  A few chiffchaffs are present right through the year - they are sometimes in the winter tit flocks - and are the first to start singing in March or even earlier when the residents are joined by returning migrants.  Next to sing are the blackcaps and then the willow warblers come back - it's an odd year if I don't hear all three by the end of March.  April brings the sedge warblers and whitethroats first and then reed warbler and garden warbler, and eventually I catch up with a lesser whitethroat simply because they are less common at the places I normally go than the other species.

This is the time of year when I might hear all eight in the same day and I did today!  It's the lesser whitethroat that is always the most difficult because I think they simply sing less than the other species.  Their song is a rattling call which is quite characteristic but can be confused with a yellowhammer or even the beginning of a chaffinch song - particularly when everything sings at once.  They can be overlooked more easily than the racket of sedge or reed warblers coming from a patch of scrub or reeds, or the onomatopoeic song of the chiffchaff.

I heard two lesser whitethroats today - and none yesterday on exactly the same walk at more or less the same time of day and under similar weather conditions.  In fact, the first lesser whitethroat today was singing with gusto right by the path - it certainly wasn't doing that as I passed the very same point yesterday. Such differences from day to day add to the pleasure of walking your local patch - every day really is different, with different species and different sightings and this is how one can keep in touch with the wonderful variety of the natural world and chart the passing seasons in one's own life.

...to hear the corncrakes sing.

A century ago the corncrake's song was heard in grassy fields in every county in the UK but now it is restricted to some Scottish islands (eg Islay, Coll, Tiree, the Uists) and a few pairs on mainland Scotland and occasionally in England and northern Ireland.  And in the same period the song of the corncrake has been lost from much of Europe - eastern Europe is now the best place to listen for its song.

Now I call it a song (because it is!) but we aren't in the realm of song thrush, nightingale or blackcap here.  The corncrake's song is a rasping sound a little like running your finger over the teeth of a comb.  Its scientific name, Crex crex, rather sums it up!  And the bird itself is no looker either!  It's a small brown moorhen-like bird which you never see because it hides so well in the long grass!

A few years ago we teamed up with Whipsnade Zoo and Natural England to reintroduce corncrakes into England and chose the RSPB's nature reserve at the Nene Washes, near Peterborough, as the release site because it is a large area of suitable grassland for corncrakes to feed and nest.  Young corncrakes, bred in captivity by very skilled Whipsnade staff are brought to the Washes in summer and then released into the wild.  Sounds simple doesn't it?  Of course, it's a complicated project which has had its ups and downs but has resulted in hundreds of young corncrakes being released over the last few years.  Then it's up to the corncrakes themselves to make the Nene Washes their home and then, and this is amazing, head off to the other side of the Sahara before flying back to the Nene Washes the next spring!

So I parked at the small car park at Eldernell and walked west along the bank before sitting down to listen.  Sedge warblers were singing in the gathering gloom and mallards and gadwalls were quacking.  A snipe 'drummed' overhead.  A shoveler made its characteristic 'tok-tok-tok' call.  Lapwings and redshanks.  A pheasant. Cows. A heron. A fox. A tawny owl. The quiet countryside is actually very noisy!

And then, from the dark, I thought I heard a corncrake - but I wasn't sure.  Was it just a funny distant duck?  And then I was sure - the corncrake got into its stride and whilst it was distant I was now listening to a sound that was commonplace a century ago but very unusual now. Crex crex, crex crex, crex crex!

That singing bird had travelled to Africa, and then back, to avoid our winter.  It may have run between an elephants legs in a marsh in Kenya whilst we were shivering in the cold snap in February. But all the time it 'knew' that the Nene Washes were its home and it made its way back here to land in the long grass and fill the air with its song.  Not the most beautiful song in the world (except, presumably to a female corncrake) but a most amazing experience - to sit listening to something that has been absent for a century and know that it is possible because of hard work by a large number of conservationists and even harder work by a small moorhen-like bird.

My local birdwatching patch is Stanwick Lakes in Northamptonshire.  This series of old gravel pits with small areas of woodland and pasture is set in the Nene Valley.  No weekend is complete without a two-hour walk around with binoculars.  But the two things that struck me today were not the birds.

The May blossom is fading and falling now and the deep creams and pinks are passing away.  I remember that around this time last year the bushes showed the impact of several weeks of easterly winds - the eastern sides of the hawthorns were bare whilst the sheltered western sides were still bright with blossoms.  It's funny how you can read the history of the recent weather in the look of the countryside.

After my day out on Monday with Martin Warren I was more alert to the butterflies on my walk - large white, green-veined white, orange tip, peacock and my first common blues of the year.  There were still a few flowers of Lady's Smock (aka Cuckoo Flower, Milkmaids, Cardamine, Meadowcress, Lucy Locket and Pigeon's Eye) and, because Martin had showed me how, I found a few single, orange eggs of the orange tip butterfly under the flowers.  These will hatch into caterpillars soon and then spend the period from July until next April as pupae.  As I walk around Stanwick Lakes with frost on the ground next February, those pupated caterpillars will be stuck to twigs waiting for spring - amazing!

This is the second year of our quest to find the country's most wildlife-friendly farmers.  Last year the winner came from Wales but this year's four finalists are from Scotland, Northern Ireland and two from England.  They have got this far by impressing regional and national judges but the final winner is up to you!

I have just voted, but your vote will count as much as mine.  So, read about all the great work that these four farmers have done to help wildife on their farms and then vote at www.rspb.org.uk/farmvote

The award is organised by the RSPB in partnership with Plantlife International, Countryfile Magazine and Butterfly Conservation.

Go on!  Have your say, and make a farmer happy!

Peter Kendall is the President of the National Farmers’ Union, and actually farms just down the road from the RSPB’s Bedfordshire HQ.  He is an exceptionally good political operator and an experienced and able lobbyist.  And yet, he must be a worried man.

Defra is currently consulting on measures to replace the environmental benefits of set-aside – a production-limiting agricultural policy which has had unexpectedly good results for wildlife.  There are two options – the one favoured by Natural England and the RSPB – which came out of a group chaired by Sir Don Curry (a group on which the NFU sat) – and which would require farmers to do a little more for wildlife on their farms and a little more work to earn their subsidy cheques.  And the other favoured by the NFU, even though they were on the group which came up with the first option, which proposes a voluntary approach.  Our preferred option is opposed by the NFU because it would impose some new costs on its membership (the NFU is a trade union after all!). 

So, is Peter Kendall worried that he might lose the argument? I think he is more worried about winning!  And that’s because he has invested lots of personal energy into promoting a voluntary approach and there aren’t many people out there who think that the NFU has enough influence on its members to get them to volunteer! 

Defra has been bending over backwards to keep in with the NFU on this issue.  Despite the NFU being part of the Curry Group they were allowed to break ranks, and Defra decided to consult on the two options even before the NFU option was written down!  The NFU’s first offering was generally regarded as being way below the required standard and now they have had another go and their latest version is released today (only a matter of days before the consultation closes).  The trouble with bending over backwards is that you risk landing on your backside and banging your head on the way down.  One problem that Defra may face is that the consultation may break Cabinet Office rules on consultations.

But back to Peter Kendall’s worries.  I guess Peter is worried about whether the NFU proposal really will deliver for wildlife, but it would be understandable if, as a trade union leader, he thought that that was not really his responsibility (that’s why we have governments) but he will certainly be worried about whether he could possibly persuade enough farmers to volunteer.  If not, then the logical consequence will be that later in the day more measures will be imposed on farmers – perhaps ones which are worse than the current very mild proposals.  The kindest thing that Hilary Benn might do for Peter Kendall is to choose the Curry Group’s recommended option and save the NFU all that worry.

As you may know, or have guessed, birds are a passion for me - but I am a keen fan of other wildlife too.  I spent today in Dorset with Martin Warren, Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/ and Victoria Chester, Chief Executive of Plantlife International http://www.plantlife.org.uk/ .  Both organisations are close friends of the RSPB and both individuals are valued friends and colleagues of mine.

We did do some work - in fact we had two good ideas (but both are secrets for now) - but we also saw some wildlife.  Martin took us to a site where scrub clearance has helped marsh fritillaries, and thanks to his skill we saw some of these threatened butterflies - I would never have spotted them unaided.

Our organisations work closely together on a range of issues and that is helped by the friendships between various of our staff  but also because the three organisations share a passion for wildlife, a belief in an evidence-based approach and a conviction that the UK could do a much better job for its wildlife.  Although my knowledge of plants is pathetically small, and my understanding of butterflies shockingly meagre, with Victoria and Martin I was on the same wavelength - wildlife deserves a better deal in the UK.

Today was an Open Day at the RSPB's arable farm near Cambridge - for founding members of, and donors to, the project.  We bought Hope Farm almost 10 years ago and our aim was to increase wildlife there, particularly those farmland birds whose populations have declined so dramatically, whilst maintaining the farm as a normal, productive, food-producing enterprise.  And we have succeeded.

Numbers of several of the common farmland birds (eg skylark, linnet, reed bunting and yellowhammer) have increased whilst three species which were initially absent are now regular breeders (lapwing, yellow wagtail and grey partridge). And our wheat yields are better than ever.

Yesterday and today we gave nearly 200 of our supporters a look around the farm and an inside view of what we had done and how we did it.  Today's visitors were keen to hear about the birds but also about the farming  - and enthusiasm was maintained even in the middle of a torrential downpour this morning!  The weather didn't put off the birds either and we saw lots of singing skylarks, quite a few linnets and yellowhammers, displaying lapwings, grey partridges and even, yesterday, a passing red kite.  This farm is not a nature reserve, it is a properly efficient arable farm producing lots of wheat, oil seed rape and beans, but its wildlife is noticeably richer than that of most farms in the neighbourhood and yet it has been relatively easy to increase bird numbers. It would be great if more farmers across the UK were doing what we have done. 

Our success rests on imaginative use of set-aside and deployment of the options available to farmers in government schemes which also supply grants.  Farmers also get public subsidies simply for being farmers and not breaking the laws that apply to farming.  That might sound like a pretty good deal for them but I really don't mind my taxes being used to support farmers provided that we money-providing tax-payers get thanked occasionally by the leaders of the farming industry (which happens very rarely indeed!) and that all that money does lead to a countryside with more wildlife in it (which is not really happening yet). 

Hope Farm shows what can be achieved - it shows that you can deliver a good business and more wildlife at the same time.   And it shows that it's not that difficult.  However, our success also highlights the lack of progress in the countryside as a whole where populations of farmland birds continue to decline.  When will we hear farmers' leaders admitting that there is more that the industry can and should do?