The Caithness Wetlands and Wildlife Initiative (CWWI) showcased its new aerator at a farm event run by the Soil Association this month. The RSPB Scotland, the Scottish Rural College and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust lead the initiative with a focus on delivering tangible benefits for rare, endangered or declining wildlife populations in Caithness. These include breeding farmland waders like lapwing, curlew, redshank and snipe, the great yellow bumblebee and twite.
Caithness is a nationally important site for breeding waders due to its open landscape and relatively low intensity farming systems, which create a good mosaic of suitable habitats. However, waders have suffered large scale declines across Scotland over the last couple of decades and initiatives like the CWWI are trying to tackle this problem across a variety of fronts. One of these is the availability of food. Waders and their chicks feed on invertebrates in the soil, particularly earthworms. If soils are heavily compacted or very acidic, earthworm abundance tends to be low. Use of an aerator in conjunction with a soil improvement programme can help to increase earthworm availability. Therefore, farmers that borrow the aerator are asked to carry out soil tests to determine whether liming in conjunction with aeration would be beneficial.
The CWWI also owns a rush topper that farmers can use to improve the agricultural quality of their ground while improving swards for breeding waders.
The aerator and the topper are available to all Caithness farmers for a small administration fee of £70. For more information, call the Thurso SAC Consulting office on 01847 892602
Bridget England - North Scotland Region