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Some wrongly label extensive livestock farming systems as ‘inefficient’. A case study of the livestock farming system on one of our upland reserves highlights that these systems can provide a lot more than first meets the eye. Following a successful day at last year's ‘National...

I just had to share this - this year more farmers than ever have entered the RSPB Telegraph Nature of Farming Award . This is fabulous news. It was already the biggest farm wildlife award in the UK. But the bigger it gets, the better it will be in spreading the word about the essential role farmers play...

Weather. We all love to talk about it, none more so than farmers. Here in the Cambridgeshire Fens we are in the paradoxical position of having just had the second wettest April since records began but being one of the counties still worst hit by drought. As you can imagine that’s giving us plenty...

The soft purring of the turtle dove is an iconic sound of summer – but it has been disappearing from our countryside at an alarming rate. The population has declined by over 90% and it’s range has shrunk largely to eastern/south-eastern England, making the turtle dove the UK’s most...

By Andrew Taylor, Great Bustard LIFE+ Project Adviser Thanks to a reintroduction project on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, the great bustard can now be seen on farms in south west England for the first time since the early 19 th Century. Perhaps the UK’s rarest farmland bird, this spectacular...

Mention the word 'farmer' in a sentence and most people would understand that you that you were talking about someone who produces food of some description. That's a farmer's job, right? Hmmm. What if that same person was described as a 'multifunctional rural resource manager'...

I've just come back from the RSPB's annual Members Weekend - three days of inspiring talks and a chance to chat to some of our wonderful supporters. On Saturday morning Marco Lambertini, Chief Executive of BirdLife International , gave a fabulous talk called 'Global partnership, local action'...

By Vicki Swales, Head of Land Use Policy, RSPB Scotland Does Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment in Scotland, want the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to promote greener farming? Or does he need some gentle persuading? On past performance, we think the...

Spotted on my way home from work – a 100-strong mixed flock of buntings and yellowhammers , with the odd tree sparrow thrown in for good measure. Tweeting, jangling hissing and popping away, they are restless, exuberant and full of spring energy, torn between winter flocking behaviour and breaking...