I recently attended the Laughton & District Ploughing Match. It was my first match and I had some fantastic chats with local farming folk as well visitors from further afield. In short, loved it! ...and met some pretty amazing people too!
Farmers in the UK seem to get a bad rap sometimes... whether because someone has had a bad experience with a local farmer or because people just aren’t really aware of the challenges of farming and all that farmers are doing for wildlife conservation on top of running a viable business and providing us with food.
Part of my work in the South Downs Landscape involves trying to change these perceptions, raise awareness of the lengths that many farmers ARE going to for wildlife on a landscape-scale and also to try and get more farmers and landowners on board with conservation who may not already be ‘giving nature a home’ on their land.
For example, did you know that nearly 75% of UK farmers are practicing some form of environmental stewardship on their farm? That’s really something to be proud of!
Here in the South Downs (and further abroad in the South East), one of the ways that the RPSB is focusing its farm advisory work is through Operation Turtle Dove...
The Turtle Dove is the UK’s only migratory dove, flying from Africa to the UK to breed every summer in our farmland. The bird is woven into our culture, a symbol of summer and even features in a favourite Christmas Carol, The 12 Days of Christmas...
It is so sad to think that many children, and even young adults, have grown up without knowing this special bird – one that used to be common place, but which has now declined by a staggering 90% since 1970! The reality of the situation is, unless we act now to stop its decline, the Turtle Dove will likely be lost from Britain within just 10 years.
One of the primary reasons for their decline is the lack of food available. Turtle Doves eat mostly weed seeds, and as a result of more efficient farming practices – which is good for us and for farmers – in Turtle Dove terms means that there are fewer weed seeds to be found on farmland. The birds are therefore driven to eat cereal grain, which is less readily available earlier in the year.
Without their early-season food, the birds aren’t fit enough to breed until later in the season, and therefore are only raising 2-4 chicks instead of their normal 6-8. Essentially, their numbers are halving with each breeding season – and this doesn’t even take into consideration those that die during their long migration and over-wintering months in Africa!
In an effort to halt the extinction of the Turtle Dove as a breeding bird in the UK, the RSPB is working closely with farmers to develop trial plots of weed seed-providing plants and will be monitoring these over the course of the next two years to see how this may help the Turtle Doves to produce more chicks and sustain healthier broods. If these trial plots work, they can then be incorporated into one of the existing agri-environment schemes so that more farmers are able to help Turtle Doves breed on their lands!
So... watch this [Operation Turtle Dove] space!