It’s been a busy few weeks for us here in Wales. The Royal Welsh Show kicked things off back in mid July, the biggest and best attended event of its kind in the UK, with four days of good weather and a huge number of visitors to the stand, so many in fact, we ran out of our increasingly popular ‘Tractor Cab Guide to Farmland Birds’ halfway through the final day.
A highlight of the show for many of us was the Nature of Farming Award presentation held on the second day of the show. It was a very well attended event and provided us with an opportunity to reward some of the best wildlife friendly farmers Wales has to offer.
The winners, father and son duo, Richard and Gethin Owen farm land overlooking the North Wales coast and have been registered organic since 2008. Gethin’s passion for the wildlife on the farm has led him to discover more about it and ultimately begin to manage the farm in ways which encourage the wildlife to thrive. The farm was for decades entirely grassland and fairly improved, but now, while applying good business sense, utilising support from agri-environment schemes and farming organically, decisions and changes have been made to increase the range of habitats on the farm and farm less intensively.
The farm still has a wealth of grasslands but now of a greater diversity and interest including unimproved acid grassland and gorse scrub with a wide range of herbs and flowering species. Amongst the grass fields there are now spring cereals, winter stubbles, brassicas and potatoes, all sprinkled with the heads of fumitories, woundwort, spurges and deadnettles and supporting large flocks of birds like linnets and skylarks. Linking it all together is a corridor of thick, dense well managed hedgerows, ditches and grassy margins, woodlands and scrub where birds such as bullfinches, tree sparrows, whitethroats and warblers thrive.
The remaining days of the Royal Welsh were as always, very busy and after a short spell visiting farms, a little desk work and a weekend spend under canvas in an Oxfordshire field listening to some good live music it was time to trek down to Haverfordwest and set up at the Pembrokeshire County Show, the largest county show in Wales.
It was only our second visit to the show and what a great time we had, not least because we were fortunate enough to be allowed to camp in the Presidents garden, not far from the show ground itself, surrounded by some beautifully wildlife rich farmland, kicked off each morning with a stunning sun-rise and brought to a close each evening with an equally special sun-set.
We had been kindly invited to share some stand space with Penlan Farm, one of our Highly Commended Nature of Farming Award winners and part of Burns Pet Nutrition Ltd. This provided the perfect opportunity to showcase the results of their Volunteer & Farmer Alliance farmland bird survey and the efforts they go to thus ensuring both good food production and wildlife conservation that lead to their nomination this year. For further information on Penlan farm visit their own blog.
You might be asking yourself why we think we’ve reached new heights....after all we’ve been attending agricultural shows, working with farmers and providing management advice for years.....well it was more of a literal (and very vertical!) height that we reached....after 3 days watching the Wye Valley Axe Men both myself and my colleague, Lesley had the opportunity to climb the 80ft lumberjack poles and I’m very pleased to say we both, eventually, made it right to the top where some incredible views of Pembrokeshire were to be had.