The RSPB have worked with individual farmers, as well as partner organisations such as the MoD, Natural England, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts to create more suitable habitat for stone-curlews, both on military grasslands and in the farmed landscape. Over the last twenty years, conservation efforts between these partners have encouraged the population to spread into the surrounding farmland, and numbers have increased.
The introduction of set-aside allowed fallow areas within fields which were sometimes suitable as nesting areas, especially if the area could be sprayed to keep vegetation from becoming too thick. Since the withdrawal of set-aside, the work has largely involved creating nesting plots which are managed specifically for stone-curlews. These plots are available under the Environmental Stewardship schemes, which compensate farmers to manage an area within a field that will encourage nesting stone-curlews safely away from agricultural operations.
These areas are monitored by RSPB project staff which not only shows population and productivity trends in Wessex, but allows advice to be given so that suitable nesting conditions can be maintained throughout the season. As a result, the farmer can carry out management without disturbing nesting birds.
Although the stone-curlew population is now recovering, this work will continue as the success is largely dependent on human intervention. As the work develops, more sustainable management techniques will be instigated to see whether the population can become self-sufficient.
The project also works closely with Natural England to identify key farms for Environmental Stewardship. The farmers can access grant payments for managing habitat on their land, and can include other management options which benefit a range of farmland wildlife, especially the six priority arable bird species – lapwing, corn bunting, turtle dove, tree sparrow, yellow wagtail and grey partridge. There are over a hundred farms currently in a stewardship scheme that are managing plots for stone-curlew.
Plots are the main mechanism available to deliver a sustainable population of stone-curlew in Wessex, and we are always looking for ways to make plot management more effective for the birds and more straightforward for those managing the land. Research to date has been used to produce management guidelines, but we continued our studies in 2015 with a plot management trial. 2016 will see the continuation of these plot management trials to enable the procurement of robust data.
These trials will test different management techniques designed to encourage nesting without the need for intensive monitoring. We hope these results will allow us to produce improved guidelines for plot management which will be used to advise Natural England on creating the new agri-environment schemes that will come into effect in 2016.
The RSPB vision is for partnership working on a landscape scale, incorporating the stone-curlew project and a whole range of other programmes. This could be encapsulated by the Wiltshire Chalk Country programme, which pulls together a number of different organisations for the restoration of the downland heritage of the chalk country across Wessex.
