Working with farmers for the conservation of rare and endangered species in North-West Wales

Guest blog from Jack Slattery, Conservation Officer RSPB Cymru

North-West Wales has many special habitats including wet grasslands, fens, soft cliffs, sand dunes, maritime grasslands, and lowland heaths which are home to numerous rare and endangered species. All these habitats require specific grazing regimes to maintain favourable condition which means working with farmers is essential. Through a nationwide species conservation project called Natur am Byth! (Nature Forever!), RSPB Cymru has been engaging with the farming community to conserve seventeen of the rarest and endangered species on Pen Llŷn ac Ynys Môn (Lleyn peninsula and Isle of Anglesey), including curlew, chough and large mason bee, with support from project partners.

Natur am Byth! has ten core partners including Natural Resources Wales and nine environmental charities. It is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Government, Arts Council of Wales, Esmée Fairburn, and the Welsh Government’s Landfill Disposal Tax Communities Scheme administered by the Wales Council for Voluntary Action. Natur am Byth! has eleven different projects across Wales covering marine and terrestrial environments with sixty-seven target species in total.

Delaying silage cutting to protect curlew chicks

The Cefni Vallley is home to the last remaining breeding population of curlew on Anglesey. During the 1980s, the RSPB estimated that there were at least 280 breeding pairs of curlew on Anglesey, but now there are less than ten. In the Cefni Valley, there is a network of wet grasslands and ditches designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest for their breeding bird assemblage, water voles and botanical diversity. Most of it is managed as pastoral farmland providing ideal conditions for nesting curlew in the form of short, open habitat interspersed with taller vegetation, such as rush. Our first step in the project was to locate breeding territories. Five were found on private farmland, and another on the RSPB reserve at Cors Ddyga.

With permission from the landowners and their tenants, electric fencing was constructed around four nests outside of the reserve to reduce the risk of predation from mammals, including foxes. Eggs from all four nests hatched successfully. The next stage was to determine how fields were going to be managed for the remainder of spring and summer. Through liaison with farmers, it was apparent all fields used by nesting pairs and their chicks were likely to be cut as silage, or to control rush. This was a risk to the survival of chicks, so we agreed with three farmers to delay cutting until mid-July after they had fledged. Natur am Byth! provided compensation to each of them for any financial losses incurred as a result of changing land management practices. Our work with farmers in the Cefni Valley resulted in three chicks fledging from five confirmed pairs in 2024, and we hope this collaboration will continue in the future. Funding is secure for the next two years, but long-term support is required for farmers to ensure a breeding population of curlew remains on Anglesey.

Curlew nest in a silage field in the Cefni Valley (c) Alice Marlow

Restoring grazing to the coastal slope to improve habitat suitability for choughs
Wales is a stronghold for Choughs. During the last national survey, there were 433 breeding pairs in the UK and Isle of Man, of which 55% were located in Wales. Despite this, the Chough population in north and mid-Wales declined by at least 25% between 1994 and 2019 (Cross and Stratford Welsh Chough Project). Choughs primarily forage on invertebrates living grazed grassland and heath. The short sward provides an accessible source of soil, ground and dung-dwelling invertebrates. One of the threats is the abandonment of farmland on the coastal slope where choughs have difficulty accessing prey in tussocky grass, bracken and scrub. Since the introduction of the Wales Coast Path, negative interactions between people, their dogs and livestock are becoming more common and many farmers are abandoning coastal grazing to reduce the risk of losing any livestock.

With funding from Natur am Byth! and the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Fund administered by the Llŷn National Landscape, we have been working with the National Trust and a tenant farmer to restore grazing to the coastal slope on the Llŷn peninsula by installing fencing, reducing the risk of any livestock falling into the sea. Since late spring, the farmer has been grazing the coastal slope with a herd of Highland cattle improving the condition of the maritime grassland by controlling bracken. The Highland cattle are very tame and are proving popular with walkers. Welsh mountain sheep were also introduced in early autumn to improve the sward structure further. Cattle will graze the coastal slope whenever the weather allows, but sheep will be excluded in spring and summer to allow maritime grassland plants to flower and set seed. During the next three years of the project, we hope to support more farmers in restoring grazing to the coastal slope, improving habitat suitability for Choughs.

Image: Highland cattle grazing on the Llŷn peninsula (c) Simon Mageean

Implementing grazing breaks to provide more food for large mason bees
The large or cliff mason bee is one of the most endangered solitary bees in the UK. It is now restricted to the coast of the Llŷn peninsula. They feed almost exclusively on bird’s foot trefoil in close proximity to the fragile sandy banks where they nest. Our conservation work has focused on increasing the availability of flowering bird’s foot trefoil following advice from Natural Resources Wales and Buglife. Two farmers managing separate sites have agreed to grazing breaks between April and July in fields adjacent to nesting colonies. Excluding grazing during the flight period of the large mason bee increases the abundance of flowering bird’s foot trefoil. Outside of the large mason bee’s flight period, we are encouraging farmers to graze these areas to maintain diverse flora and prevent the growth of tussocky vegetation, scrub and trees. The varied sward structure will also provide foraging opportunities for chough.

In 2024, a peak count of sixteen large mason bee provides a baseline to monitor further conservation work delivered through Natur am Byth!

Image: Large mason bee male on a dandelion (c) Siôn Dafis

We would like to thank all farmers for their conservation work over the first year of Natur am Byth!, and we look forward to working with them and other project partners over the next three years of the project to improve the conservation status of 17 target species across Pen Llŷn ac Ynys Môn. For a full list of target species, please visit: Natur am Byth! Programme Briefing.