There are definite signs of spring in the air here at Hope Farm: skylarks were singing all around me as I walked into the farm this morning, the first small tortoiseshells and queen buff-tailed bumblebees have been seen flying around the farmhouse orchard. While the winter was generally another mild one, with few frosts, it is always great to see real evidence of spring arriving.
Image 1: The Orchard at Hope Farm where the first bumblebees and butterflies of the spring have been seen. Apart from abundant pollen and nectar from fruit blossom, old orchards are also important habitat for nesting and feeding birds, while deadwood is important for invertebrates. Leaving unmown areas around the trees can be beneficial for flowers and insects. (Rebecca O’Dowd)
Another sign of spring coming closer is cultivations starting on the farm ahead of spring drilling. Being on heavy clay the weather, and subsequent condition of the soil, dictates a prolonged close down during the winter when operations cease. Aside from the risk of getting machinery stuck, working in the clay in wet conditions can seriously damage the soil structure, and poor soil structure generally leads to poor crops. But being conscious of the need to get our spring wheat drilled as early as possible, it is great to see the quadtracks come on the farm and start the preparatory cultivations. By the time you read this the wheat will have been drilled and we’ll be planning for drilling the peas, our final crop to be established.
Image 2: Preparations for drilling spring wheat. The timing of this operation is a fine balance between risk to machines and damage to soil structure and the need to drill the wheat as soon as possible. (Ian Dillon)
March is also a great time to take stock of how the hedge management went over the winter. All our hedges, with the exception of roadside ones, are cut during January and February on a three year rotation. This is quite easy to carry out when the hedges are alongside tracks, but more challenging when they’re alongside crops or conservation areas. We normally wait for a good frost to do these hedges, and thankfully this winter there were at least a few frosty mornings (unlike last winter!). We didn’t get every hedge cut that we had planned to but we got the great majority done. Hopefully this will leave these hedges in great condition for nesting birds and all the other wildlife that uses hedges over the next three years until it is their turn to be cut again.
Image 3: Hedges at Hope farm are cut in January/ February at 3 year intervals. This management produces a well-developed structure attractive to nesting birds. Hedges around the farm should ideally be cut on a rotational pattern to ensure there is always suitable hedge habitat for birds other wildlife at any given time. (Andy Hay: rspb-images.com).
Conservation management doesn’t stop with hedges though. While they provide safe nesting areas for whitethroats, yellowhammers and linnets, these and all other birds also require abundant food during the year to survive and thrive. In the spring and summer most species require invertebrates for themselves and their chicks, and during the winter many birds require seeds. Providing sufficient quantities and, importantly, ensuring the habitats and resources are of high quality is very important to us as conservation farmers.
Image 4: Flower-rich margins at Hope Farm provide habitat for insects, which in turn are an important food source for adult birds and their chicks in spring/summer. The flowers are also a key pollen and nectar source for bees and butterflies. (Andy Hay: rspb-images.com).
Planning ahead is vital. The wild bird cover crops, which provide the over-winter seed during next winter, will be drilled in early May and the planning of where to put it on the farm is carried out in February or March. This gives our contractors sufficient time to prepare the ground for drilling. We currently aim to use 2% of the potential cropping area to deliver seed rich unharvested bird crops each year. Here this means approximately 3.4ha. This may sound a lot but when we place it in out smallest fields or awkward and low-yielding corners around our fields it really doesn’t impact much at all on our overall crop production. Management of these areas is key to the quality of seed provision: ensuring they are as ‘weed’ free as possible before drilling by a combination of rotating the areas where we grow the crops, cultivations and spraying a herbicide to control the ‘weeds’, followed by applying a low rate of nitrogen fertiliser at stem extension all helps increase the quantity of seed provided.
And the birds have responded! In another recent blog here we reported on the changes in wintering bird numbers at Hope Farm. The changes have been staggering so it is worth repeating the headlines again here.
Taking yellowhammer as an example in the first winter (2000/01) that RSPB owned Hope Farm we found a maximum of 2 yellowhammers. This was at a time when all the available cropping area was used for autumn sown crops and therefore there was virtually no seed food available for birds such as yellowhammers to eat. Fast forward to the winter just past and the maximum count was 236! Many of our visitors over the winter have left saying the flocks of yellowhammers around the wild bird cover crops was one of the most impressive wildlife spectacles they have seen. The other startling fact that is worth repeating is the increase in diversity as well as numbers. In December 2000 we recorded 203 birds of 22 species, whereas in December 2014 we recorded 1605 birds of 44 species. That makes me feel quite proud of what we have achieved here.
Image 5: Yellowhammers have been a major success story at Hope Farm. Provision of winter food via sown wild bird seed mixes has helped increased the maximum winter count from 2 in winter 2000/1 to 236 in winter 2014/14. (Andy Hay: rspb-images.com)
If I could encourage all my farming colleagues to do two things with the conservation management and provision it would be these: think about quality, not just quantity. Go that extra mile and spend those extra few pounds to deliver higher quality whether it is in the flower rich margins or meadows, or the wild bird cover areas. The second is to be proud of what you have done, show it off, invite your neighboring farmers round to see what you have done and take real pleasure from the increasing number of birds, butterflies and bees that will be on your farm as a result.
If you would like more information on Hope Farm please contact:
Ian Dillon (Hope Farm Manager): ian.dillon@rspb.org.uk
Alternatively watch out for regular updates on farm operations, events and research here on the RSPB Farming blog or on Twitter by following @AgriODowd
By Ian Dillon (Hope Farm Manager)