This week I continue to focus on the challenges facing migratory birds such as turtle dove. I've covered hunting on the flyway and threats from disease. Today, I welcome a guest blog from former colleague Simon Tonkin who now works for Conservation Grade. Simon explains what we are doing together with farmers, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust and Natural England through Operation Turtle Dove to create suitable breeding conditions here in the UK. He ends by saying how you can help turtle dove when you shop.
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What does does bird migration mean to you? A quick dash to the nearest headland to catch a glimpse of wayward migrant? The marking of the seasons? A question or questions of where they are going to or coming from? Or just simply the wonder of it all?
For me its all of those things but also importantly it’s a promise, a promise that is hopefully fulfilled, a promise of return, yet that promise is increasingly failing to be fulfilled.
Migrant birds transverse huge obstacles upon their perilous journeys and of course they unite nations with their borderless movements. Yet despite this epic and wondrous annual marathon we seemingly fail to show them the admiration and respect they deserve and place ever greater obstacles in their way.
These beautiful migrants face these ever increasing man-made obstacles with disastrous consequences whether it’s hunting, deforestation or the way in which we farm these can have delirious impacts upon their populations.
Due to the dominance of agriculture across Europe it is can be of little doubt to be of pivotal importance to these migrant birds whether they be utilising the area as transient visitors or settling down on their breeding grounds.
Yet when they come to these areas all too commonly there is little opportunity for them to refuel, find safe nesting sites and find enough food to raise their young.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this latest round of CAP reform in light of EU targets to halt bio-diversity loss by 2020 would have made a real positive change for our migrants but the reality is seemingly quite the opposite. Yet perhaps that’s always the problem relying solely upon political decisions to deliver meaningful change for our natural world and sometimes we need to look beyond the traditional conservation advocacy and take matters into our own hands.
A new era of conservation is emerging a way of influencing the market to secure wildlife habitats that these migrant birds can use to fulfil their needs when arriving ‘home’. Being ‘Fair to Nature’ is at the heart of what we at Conservation Grade do through market based incentives. We ensure our farmers do this by providing 10 percent of their farmed area for wildlife benefits in return for a modest premium - the right types of habitats at the right scale and in the right places.
At Conservation Grade (here) we are proud and active partners in Operation Turtle Dove (here), partnership set-up to reverse the current parlous state of turtle doves - that quintessential sound of summer and a migrant struggling to fulfil that promise of return from the Sahelian region of Africa.
Take for example Conservation Grade farming couple John & Elllie Savoury in Norfolk they are currently awaiting with excited anticipation. Any day now we hope turtle doves will return to use the habitats that John and Ellie are required to create and manage by being Conservation Grade farmers and I’m awaiting the call from them soon.
This time of year is an exciting time when migrants suddenly appear and we must surely hope that their return is greeted with a warm welcome of habitats they so desperately need.
Join me in welcoming them back by securing much needed habitats by buying fair to nature products carrying the Conservation Grade logo - in doing so you are helping fulfil a promise.
Reading this blog and Martin's previous one, do we perhaps underestimate the impact of the reduction in quality of habitat and resources available to birds short of losing them altogether ? Just like with people with too little or the wrong food, or insanitary conditions, the general condition of animals must be lowered even if they don't die as a direct result - its been suggested, for example, that the switch to maize silage has played a part in the increase in TB in cattle. Despite all the stats, it is still hard to fully comprehend the extent to which we've chipped away at the last bits of diversity in our countryside and for a weed seed feeder like Turtle Dove its hardly surprising that they aren't doing too well in our squeaky-clean arable landscapes.