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Corn bunting BAP report
The UK population of corn buntings fell by 89% between 1970 and 2003
What are we trying to achieve?
The Government agreed a Biodiversity Action Plan for this species in 1998. The targets for this plan were revised in 2006 and are as follows:
- In England, ensure the BBS index is no longer showing a negative trend by 2010 and is at least at 100% of the 2003 level by 2015. In Scotland, ensure the population is at 100% of the 2010 baseline by 2015. Immediate priority for Scotland will be to establish the baseline population by 2010
- In Wales, establish viable breeding population of >10 singing males by 2020
- In England, ensure the percentage of occupied BBS squares is at 100% of the 2003 level by 2010. In Scotland, increase the percentage of occupied BBS squares to 110% of the 2010 level by 2015. Immediate priority for Scotland will be to establish the population baseline by 2010
What is the RSPB doing to help?
The RSPB is making a substantial contribution to the UK BAP for corn bunting and other farmland birds through research, advocacy and advisory work. During 1995-99 we joined with the Game Conservancy Trust, English Nature (now incorporated within Natural England) and Sussex University to study corn buntings on the South Downs.
This research indicated that the loss of winter feed, including the loss of spring tillage and weedy over-winter stubble fields, along with earlier harvesting and the indirect effects of pesticides, are important factors in the decline of the corn bunting. Loss of arable production from pastoral regions may also have been important.
In 2004, our input and lobbying played an important role in securing the inclusion of corn buntings as a target species in the Higher Level Environmental Stewardship Scheme in England.
In 2006 we:
- Continued the recovery project in Benbecula and North Uist
- Maintained breeding numbers of corn buntings against a background of continued decline on farms in the Farmland Bird Lifeline (FBL) scheme, an RSPB project in north-east Scotland which offers farmers financial incentives to manage areas of land to benefit corn buntings (co-funded with Scottish Natural Heritage, and with the assistance of FWAG Scotland)
- Continued trials of a late-cut silage management prescription on FBL farms in NE Scotland, where farmers are paid to delay silage mowing until 1 August to allow corn bunting nests to fledge successfully
- Researched the continuing collapse in population in the Outer Hebrides
- Continued to employ a Corn Bunting Project Officer in Scotland to encourage Rural Stewardship Scheme applications
- Committed recovery project money to the corn bunting population in Cornwall, to be used for delaying cutting in grass fields containing active nests and for establishing sacrificial crops to provide nesting sites and winter food resources
- Started a 3-year study of the breeding ecology of corn buntings in Cornwall in order to inform conservation efforts for this population. This focuses on how to provide safe nesting habitats for corn buntings where the risk of nest predation and destruction from agricultural operations is low
- Continued to study the effect of the Rural Stewardship Scheme on corn bunting populations in North-east Scotland
- Studied the winter to summer dispersal distances of corn buntings, in order to inform the most cost-effective ways of delivering winter seed-providing measures through agri-environment schemes, in North-East Scotland and in Wiltshire (part of a Defra-funded consortium project, led by British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)
Summary of progress
Population indices for farmland birds are based on long-term monitoring schemes; the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) funded Common Birds Census (CBC), for which 2000 was the final year; and its successor, the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Between 1994 and 2005, corn bunting numbers declined in the UK by a statistically significant 32% according to the BBS. The long-term trend, assessed by the CBC/BBS, is a decline of 89% between 1970 and 2003, so we are still some way from achieving the BAP targets, despite their revision.
RSPB research indicates that the continuing collapse in the Outer Hebrides population is due to the switch from traditional whole crop silage production and storage to black-bag silage. In East Scotland, data analysis has shown that in areas with Farmland Bird Lifeline, there was a reduced probability of decline in the corn bunting breeding population between 2002-2004 than in areas out-with the scheme. This suggests that with proper targeting of agri-environment management for corn buntings, such schemes do have the potential to halt and reverse the species’ decline.
The RSPB Corn Bunting Project Officer in Scotland has helped to influence over 380 Rural Stewardship Scheme plans. Twelve farms remained in the RSPB/SNH funded Farmland Bird Lifeline, and most participants have continued to provide management for corn buntings through entry into the Rural Stewardship Scheme. Prescriptive measures to benefit corn buntings are now available in most agri-environment schemes, in response to RSPB advocacy.
Has our work been effective?
It is hard to gauge the direct effects of advocacy and advisory work on bird numbers but the indications are that our work has been effective in raising awareness of the decline in farmland birds such as the corn bunting, both among farmers and politicians. The biological prospects for this species should be fair, given that most of their requirements have been built into agri-environment schemes, which will be deployed on a wide scale, although options that provide weedy crops could be unpopular with farmers (conservation headlands and extensive cropping have had poor take up in Scotland). However, if sensibly targeted, they should have a positive effect, at least at a local scale.
In East Scotland, monitoring of Farmland Bird Lifeline has shown that such schemes do have the potential to halt and reverse the population decline, so long as management prescriptions are carefully targeted, both geographically, and to ensure that all of the species’ requirements are met throughout the year.
The Entry Level options of the Environmental Stewardship Scheme in England should help to provide winter seed and summer invertebrates for corn buntings, but its effect on the BAP targets will depend on the number of agreements containing the relevant management options that are placed within the existing corn bunting range. The Higher Level options of the Environmental Stewardship scheme in England should allow more close targeting of relevant options to corn bunting breeding range, but it is unclear what level of resource these options will receive from government, and unclear whether enough of the key options will be available to have any significant effect. The problem of destruction of broods through earlier harvesting and grass cutting also remains as an unsolved problem.
What do we plan to do next?
- Continue to press government departments to change agricultural policy to benefit farmland birds, including corn bunting
- Continue efforts at UK and EU level to ensure that rural development funding and in particular agri-environment funding is increased, not decreased
- In Scotland, continue to press for targeted schemes for corn buntings within existing agri-environment schemes (RSS/LMCs) and for an SNH Natural Care scheme
- Continue recovery projects in east Scotland, the Hebrides, and Cornwall. Monitor these and, in particular, the ability for recovery project funding to provide safe nesting habitat, where the chances of nest destruction due to cereal harvesting/grass cutting are low
- Reserves with corn buntings will provide suitable winter food (wild bird cover or feeders) and, where possible, sympathetically managed crops for nesting
- Use RSPB’s Volunteer & Farmer Alliance Project to identify farms with corn buntings, and encourage farmers to apply for entry to relevant agri-environment schemes and manage their land appropriately
- Promote agri-environment schemes to farmers in areas with important corn bunting populations
- Monitor the efficacy of Higher Level Stewardship in bringing the right combination of prescriptions to important corn bunting populations
- In Scotland, continue monitoring the impact of the Rural Stewardship Scheme on corn bunting populations at the farm scale (project began in 2002)
- Devise prescriptions for maintenance of traditional livestock food production in the Hebrides and achieve funding and promotion of these through Rural Stewardship Scheme
- Look at ways of creating suitable habitat for late nesting, including consideration of sacrificial crops, grass margins or wild bird mixes
What are the constraints to fully achieving the targets?
Lack of widespread prescriptive management (and ‘special projects’ within schemes targeted specifically at corn buntings) due to funding constraints on agri-environment schemes, and lack of uptake of the most important options for corn bunting within these schemes.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Natural England for its financial support towards our work on corn buntings, which forms part of Action for Birds in England, a conservation partnership between NE and the RSPB.
Last modified: 30 August 2007