The Great British Farmland Bird Choir: Hope Farm Ensemble

As we are now in October, signs of autumn are everywhere. Shortening days, lengthening nights, heavy dews most mornings and a distinct chill in the air – a real change from the 30C days in September. Harvest has finished and the patient wait for the right conditions to drill new crops goes on.

From a bird point of view there are signs of autumn too. A flock of over 250 lapwings feeding on one of our fields is a record count we think, several coveys of grey partridges gracing the farm and flocks of finches and buntings starting to appear on the fields and wild bird cover crops.

As harvest finished last week, the start of October also gives us an opportunity to reflect on the past few months. How did our breeding birds, butterflies, bumblebees and moths do? How was harvest?

Lets start with harvest. It is rather unusual for us to still be harvesting crops in late September, more akin to the years I lived in northern Scotland. Normally the last week of August sees the end of harvest here, but one of ‘new’ crops millet is very late drilled and late harvested. While this crop is being sold through Fair to Nature to be used for RSPB wild bird seed, it is a sign of the crop diversification that we have undertaken in the last year. Many other arable farms in England have diversified to comply with the 3-crop rule, but others have done so in response to market conditions and to help tackle increasingly problematic pernicious weed issues. Those have driven the change here.

The map shows how different the cropping pattern of the farm is now compared to the first year of RSPB ownership when winter wheat and oilseed rape where the only crops grown. Spring barley, winter linseed and millet were all new crops for us and each provided their own challenges and learning curve.

As you all know June was a particularly dull and cold month and that was reflected in the yields attained by some of our crops, particularly autumn drilled crops, along with serious issues with blackgrass control adding additional yield penalties. Overall, spring barley and winter beans exceeded expectations, barley spectacularly so. However, linseed, wheat and millet all fell below expectation. Barley and millet will stay in the rotation, but linseed will be dropped as oilseed rape re-enters the rotation.

Starting wheat harvest at RSPB Hope Farm. Copyright RSPB Images/Andy Hay

The change in cropping and particularly the change in drilling season with a near 50/50 split between autumn and spring drilling will have had a large influence on the wildlife on the farm. The robust systematic monitoring we carry out at Hope Farm will allow us to closely monitor the affect of these changes, especially as the area of autumn drilling is likely to decline further in favour of spring drilling.

While all wildlife on the farm is important, the breeding birds are our primary focus as you might expect. On the whole it has been another successful season, with our composite breeding bird index rising to 3.02, or a 202% increase since 2000. This is the second highest level we have recorded, which is fantastic. It has been wonderful to see at least 4 pairs of lapwing, possibly as many as six pairs, breeding on the farm and hearing three male corn buntings singing away. Compared to 2000 most species have shown spectacular increases, see table below. The farm held 245 territories of 16 farmland bird index species compared to 117 territories of 10 species in 2000. It is not just abundance that has increased, but diversity and that is as important.

Birds cannot thrive on their own though, they are a part of the fragile intricate ecosystem on the farm as we all know. All the other wildlife is equally as vital to a thriving landscape. Butterflies are one of the other species groups that we have monitored for over 15 years. As with the crops struggling because of the weather in June, we initially gained an impression that butterflies had also had a poor season. But they seemed to bounce back later in the summer and analysis of the data collected shows that some species seemed to have had a very good year with the overall composite index rising to 2.22, a 122% increase since 2000, but admittedly a slight drop since last year.

Hope Farm Butterfly Index 2001 - 2016 (Hope Farm - red line; UK - green line).

As I look back on spring and summer 2016, I think two highlights stand out for me. The first was a neighbour stopping by to tell me how pleased he and his wife were to hear lapwings displaying while sitting enjoying the spring in their garden. They had lived in a house bordering our farm for over 20 years and it was the first time they had heard them from their garden.

The second was a visiting farmer who said he had never heard so much bird song on a farm. Having been here for over 10 years, I have become rather used to so many skylarks, whitethroats, yellowhammers and all the other species doing their best to form the Hope Farm choir. It is a stark reminder that not everywhere has such an impressive repertoire of song.

I remain absolutely convinced that we can restore farmland birds across our landscape and reform the Great British Farmland Bird Choir. That choir has been too quiet for far too long. With considerable challenges ahead due to Brexit we may require the willingness of individual farmers, backed up with incentives and support, to step up for farm wildlife more than ever, and it does give me considerable pleasure that Hope Farm may help inspire  them so that they can have their own individual bird choirs too.