Natural England's Sunnyside Farm by Sarah Warrener of Natural England.
All photos by Tim Brodie James
Over 150 square miles of Dorset was covered in heathland 250 years ago. Over the years this has been converted to agriculture or built upon so that now only about 30 square miles of heathland remains. Sunnyside Farm, covering 67ha, was one of the last areas of heathland to be converted to agriculture during the 1960s.
(Photo 1: Overview of restoration 1 cropped)
A large ditch was dug to drain the land and allow it to be turned into better livestock grazing land and land for arable crops such as barley. It was farmed for about 35 years until Natural England bought the farm. At the time of purchase about 19ha were arable land and the rest grazing land. Natural England filled in the ditch that was dug in the 1960s to make the land wet again. As a result the land has slowly become more attractive to wildlife.
(Photo 2: Mire Restoration 3 cropped)
Although we don’t know what wildlife was using Sunnyside Farm before it was reclaimed to heathland Natural England and its partners have studied what is using it since reclamation. Two of the bird species that are using the site are woodcock and jack snipe.
Jack snipe are migratory birds which breed in northern Europe and Russia and spend the winter in Britain and countries even further to the south. They are very secretive and like to live in marshy areas where they can easily find worms and insects to eat. Sunnyside Farm supports a population of jack snipe because it has exactly the type of habitat they are looking for. Their numbers have been increasing and it is now one of the best sites in Dorset to find these secretive birds.
(Photo 3: View from Tramway)
Woodcock are resident in Britain but some are also winter visitors from Russia and Finland. The woodcock at Sunnyside Farm are winter visitors. They are mostly nocturnal birds which spend the day time in wooded areas and emerge at night to feed on open ground containing damp patches. The bird ringers who study the bird life on Sunnyside Farm have noticed, by recording the birds’ ring numbers, that the same birds use the same areas of open ground and return to that precise area year after year.
(Photo 4: Cows cropped)