On RSPB Scotland's Onziebust Farm on Egilsay, work continues apace to expand our Nature Friendly Farming work. Reserve Warden Vicky Anderson tells us more.
From humble beginnings we now have 40 breeding cows and 150 breeding ewes on Onziebust, and crucially the means to deliver conservation grazing across the entire nature reserve. This has included restorative work on some historically undermanaged fields. Through a combination of cutting work with specialist machinery and cattle grazing we now have 100 hectares of excellent wader habitat which in 2022 supported 245 pairs of waders, including lapwing and curlew. The reserve has some of the best wildflower displays in Orkney and we continue to work to improve them for floral diversity and the iconic great yellow bumblebee.
Another key objective of our management is to demonstrate that nature friendly farming can deliver for biodiversity, whilst still producing results as a commercial agricultural operation. We are still in relatively early days of developing that model but just in a few years, we are pleased with the quality of stock we have been able to produce. Most of our winter fodder is produced in house from botanically diverse grasslands and we hope this demonstrates that low input farming and conservation can sit side by side.
Springtime on Onziebust is a very special time indeed and the sight and sound of 250 pairs of breeding waders is not to be missed. We manage our wader fields with grazing cattle combined with a bit of mechanical cutting and also a bit of sheep grazing. In spring time all the stock are excluded from the key wader areas to minimise disturbance and damage to nests. And while the wardening team are busy with early morning wader surveys and nest monitoring, the farm staff are busy 24/7 with calving and lambing.
These two lapwing chicks were amongst the new arrivals in 2022. Credit: Mark Weston.
2022 was a good year for our wading birds. The spring weather was considerably better than the brutal conditions of 2021 and remained settled for most of April into May. Birds settled down to the breeding season early and surveys were enjoyable and largely completed in good conditions. After some number crunching we totalled up 54 pairs of lapwing, 43 pairs of redshank, 79 pairs of oystercatcher, 38 pairs of curlew and 32 pairs of snipe. We’re also delighted with a bonus pair of black-tailed godwits which have bred on the reserves since 2020, part of a very small population of the Limosa Limosa islandica subspecies that have colonised Orkney in recent years.
Every year we create new small pools, called scrapes, for wading birds. Credit: Vicky Anderson.
Orkney continues to support a small population of corncrakes (17 calling males in 2022) but sadly still not on Onziebust or the wider island. Once corncrakes are lost from an area it is very difficult to get them back, so these challenges are to be expected. Other Orkney islands, for example Papay and Westray, continue to support corncrakes and, somewhat frustratingly, it should be noted that Papay and Westray birds fly over Egilsay to reach their ultimate destination in May each year! RSPB Scotland is committed to working to attract corncrakes back to Onziebust at least for the next 5 years, so we go again for 2023 and will continue to work to improve our corncrake areas. Early cover areas with an abundance of key species such as nettles, cow parsley or yellow flag iris are crucial so we will continue to increase and manage that kind of coverage. For mid to late summer cover, corncrakes prefer slightly improved grasslands and late cut summer silage fields.
As you may be aware the UK has lost a significant amount of wildflower areas, to be more precise 97% since 1930, which has had a significant impact for the wider ecosystem. Here at Onziebust, one of our key objectives is to preserve and enhance fields not just for floral diversity but also for the UKs rarest bumblebee, the great yellow bumblebee. Over the next few years we will be seeking to increase the key plants for the this very special bumblebee and that means more red clover, birds-foot trefoil and knapweed for starters. We manage our bee fields in a very traditional way with a late summer cut for winter forage silage or late summer grazing. Either way, it’s great to see species diverse grasslands playing such a key role in feeding our stock.
Great yellow bumblebees are the rarest bumblebee in Britain, but there are plenty on Egilsay. Credit: Joe Powell.
To learn more about Onziebust, visit our website.
Header image credit: Vicky Williams.