Blog

Birds

With the breeding season well under way, 2009 has started positively. The migrants started arriving in the middle of April with early sightings of wheatears, swallows, whitethroats and lesser whitethroats augmenting the regular skylark, yellowhammer and linnet songs. The early nesting birds such as song thrush and starling are now feeding their young.

We have 18 boxes of starling chicks this year, and from the office window, I can see that the parents are being kept extremely busy bringing earthworms and leatherjackets. This dry period has been challenging for this ground probing species with the birds travelling further to find food. We have individually colour ringed 48 chicks, which we will monitor very closely over the next few weeks.

Hope Farm Regular Donor Open Days

We had a busy weekend hosting 170 of our regular donors. It is encouraging to see how enthusiastic they are about the project. I firmly believe that the Hope Farm project continues to produce some amazing results, strengthening the RSPB’s ability to demonstrate that commercial farming can go hand in hand with increasing farmland bird numbers.

The members who visited were shown some of the areas we manage to provide the 'Big three' – a safe nesting site, and plentiful supplies of insects and seed feed. These habitats include skylark plots, pollen and nectar mixtures, wild bird cover and grass margins. In addition, they examined some of the latest research for species such as yellow wagtails and starlings, and learnt about techniques for improving the way we manage grass margins and our water features. Find out how you can become a regular donor.

Crops 

We are desperate for rain. In East Anglia, we had under half the average rainfall in April and the start of May there has been no improvement. The spring beans, which were planted at the end of March, have struggled in this dry spell and there are incredibly large cracks appearing in the fields.

On a more positive note, the oilseed rape, which has been in full flower for the last few weeks, looks to be the best crop we have grown for years. Broadcasting the crop, this year has paid dividends, as most of the drilled crops in the locality looked poor this autumn. The wheat will receive a second fungicide later this week primarily to control the yellow rust within the crop.

Cropping

The beautiful snowy weather at the start of February has now thawed leaving the fields extremely wet and muddy. Undoubtedly this will delay our farming operations this spring and it will require several weeks of dry weather before we are able to sow our spring beans. We have managed to complete the planned hedge cutting during February. We aim to cut our hedges predominately on a three-year rotation to provide a variety of hedge heights and widths.

Trimming on a three-year rotation rather than annually boosts the berry crops available for wintering birds and populations of insects. Other work planned for spring will include re-establishing some of our wild bird cover and pollen and nectar mixtures once the weather improves.

The wheat and oilseed rape established well and the weather has not affected them. Broadcasting the oilseed rape, rather than using minimum tillage has paid dividend this winter with the crops significantly more advanced than the majority of the minimum tilled crops in the surrounding area. Our only headache is keeping the large flocks of woodpigeons off the crop.

Farmland Bird Index

There has been a lot of discussion in the farming press about the small decline in the Hope Farm farmland bird index. It is of course disappointing that the numbers did not continue to rise, however what has been ignored by farming groups is since the RSPB purchased the site, the farmland bird population has doubled against a backdrop of national declines.

The RSPB is proud of the results achieved at Hope Farm where we have been able to show that measures to increase bird numbers do not have to be at the expense of either yield or profitability. This has been largely achieved by using a simple mix of options within Entry Level Scheme to provide the “Big three” – nesting habitat, summer and winter food.

To find out about providing the big three for farmland birds, visit: www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/farming/advice/

Bird highlights

The February winter bird count recorded good numbers of 151 skylarks, 30 linnets and 21 grey partridges. The linnets were observed feeding on spilt charlock seed from last year's harvest. The most unusual bird recorded on the count was a woodcock. We also recorded three bramblings, feeding with a flock of chaffinches, on seed put out during the snow.

Wheat yields reach new highs

As we head into Christmas, it is time to reflect on a busy end of the year. Harvest, which now seems along time ago, went relatively smoothly.  The wheat and spring beans were harvested on the 31st August with better than expected results. Our winter wheat averaged 11.6t/ha the RSPB’s best ever and 36% higher than last year. Yields for the spring beans were a respectable 3.4t/ha whilst the oilseed rape, which had not recovered from the early winter woodpigeon damage, reached only a disappointing 2.0t/ha. We were extremely fortunate that we escaped the worst of the wet weather when the contractor combined the crops, as the crops only required small amounts of drying to meet the minimum storage requirements.
This years cropping (to be harvested in 2009) consists of 82 ha of winter wheat, 32 ha of oilseed rape and 37 ha of spring beans. The wheat was sown remarkably quickly after harvest on the 17th September. Between harvest and sowing, the contractor had completed several cultivations with discs and tines to provide a good quality seed bed for the wheat. As in previous years, the oilseed rape was broadcast into the standing wheat prior to the wheat harvest. Our decision to continue with this method this year followed the conclusion of the oilseed rape trail, which is described below. The germination was especially good because the damp soil conditions resulting in a uniform oilseed rape. Wet weather has delayed the last of the spraying and it now looks as though this will not happen until next year. Hopefully it will stop raining at somepoint so we are able to get the spraying upto date.

Benefits of broadcast oilseed rape:

You may remember that over the last two years we have been establishing our oilseed rape using two methods, broadcasting and the more traditional non-inversion tillage. Our original decision to broadcast was made on a commercial basis four years ago because it provided large savings in establishment costs compared with traditional methods. By broadcasting, we provide more over-winter stubbles, which have the potential to be a good source of grain and weed seeds. However, we did not have any information on which method farmland birds preferred. To resolve this question, we established a trial to compare bird use of oilseed rape grown by the two methods. We have just completed the analysis, which indicate that there is no significant difference between methods, although the birds numbers on the broadcast rape were consistently higher on the broadcast compared with the non-inversion tillage. The possible reasons for this are that the oilseed rape rapidly grows up to prevent access to the seed within the stubble or that birds do not use it once the rape has grown up due to the predation risk. Given the conclusions we have decided to base our choice on method of establishment on agronomic and economic considerations, as for birds, there was no clear and consistent evidence that suggests one technique is more beneficial than the other. Therefore, we decided to continue broadcasting the seed as this method provided superior financial margins allowing us easier control of blackgrass our biggest grass weed problem. The full results of these trials can be seen on the Farm wildlife website http://www.farmwildlife.info/case/default.asp.

Birds

Analysis of the maps was completed and as predicted in the last entry they did show a mixed year. The results show that 2008 Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index to be the second highest only very slightly down from last years record. Woodpigeon, yellow wagtail, linnet and reed bunting all held the highest number of territories since recording began in 2000. Yellowhammer, grey partridge and greenfinch numbers were stable whilst skylark and whitethroats numbers fell.  This is still a very positive story against the backdrop of the national decline of the farmland bird index.
We have now started our winter fieldwork, our first count in November was promising as we recorded over 280 yellowhammer plus 20 snipe and a woodcock. We will provide further updates in the next addition.

Harvest starts

It has a busy time over the last few weeks. Harvesting started on 28/7/08 with oilseed rape obliterated within a four hour period by the contractor’s two new combines. Yields, estimated from the combines, show that the broadcast rape outperformed the minimum tilled rape however because of heavy wood pigeon damage neither are particularly impressive. Light cultivations started the following day on the fields harvested. We are waiting patiently for the wheat to be harvested, hopefully within the next two weeks as long as the showery weather stops. The spring beans will be harvested at the start of September if everything goes according to plan.  Elsewhere on the farm, the contractor has cut a number of the grass margins and pollen and nectar mixtures to aid establishment.

Birds

The researchers are currently studying the recently completed bird maps from this years breeding season to calculate how many pairs of each species were present on the farm. These maps are produced following intensive monitoring from April through to the start of July. Early indications suggest that there have been some winners and losers compared with last years figures but we will have to wait another month to see the final figures and see how this effects the Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index which has risen by 89% since 2000. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of yellow wagtails using the farm this year and we had a number of fledged chicks flying around the fields.

Farm Wildlife Margin Event held at the farm

A Farm Wildlife  event was organised for farmers, advisers, and ecologists focusing on Arable Field Margin management on 1 July.  The idea was to bring together these groups to discuss the ecology and practical management of field margins, and ensure that the best wildlife habitats can be delivered through existing funding mechanisms.  This was one of a series of events, which are unique in bringing farmers and ecologists together, in the hope of improving the understanding of how habitats help wildlife and the practical issues of getting the management right.
 
At this event, the main messages were:
 ·a diversity of habitats within the field margins will help the  greatest range of biodiversity - strips of rough grass margins,  wildflower margins, pollen and nectar strips, wild bird cover  strips, and cultivated uncropped margins will broaden the  opportunities for wildlife to thrive on an arable farm;
 ·management in the first year of establishing perennial margins  should focus on weed control to minimise the need for  management in future years;
 ·management should be avoided during the nesting season  (April-August) - if management is required during this period  (eg for weed control in the first year of establishment, or to  prolong flowering season of pollen and nectar mixtures), then  it is best to cut regularly to keep the sward too short to  attract nesting birds or leverets;
 ·grasses tend to out compete wildflowers in perennial margins,  and management is needed to suppress the grasses in order to  maintain the wildflowers – scarification worked well in trials  at Hope Farm, but is not currently allowed under funding  schemes;
 ·scrub is a valuable habitat for wildlife that is currently  discouraged by the regulations for keeping land in 'Good  Agricultural and Environmental Condition' - the group vowed to  lobby for changes to regulations to enable more flexible  management of margins.

Visit :  http://www.farmwildlife.info/  to find out more about this event, look at other farming case studies or to join in the discussion forum.