Abstract
We counted songbirds in crops planted specifically for game management purposes on farmland in Britain. In southern England, 30 plots of either kale, quinoa or cereal and 30 adjacent field transects were surveyed up to six times at monthly intervals during the winter 1997-1998. In the Scottish lowlands, six plots of a cereal brood-rearing crop and adjacent fields were counted in summer 1999 or 2000. The winter game crop types contained more than 10 songbirds per hectare in most months, while the adjacent field transects contained less than one. Of the 26 species recorded, 10 have undergone rapid declines over the last 30 years. Considering these declining species only, the game crops contained more individuals than the adjacent fields. Densities in both the kale and quinoa were higher than in the cereal but in all three, numbers declined significantly towards the end of the winter. The six brood-rearing cover plots sampled in mid-summer contained on average 2.9 songbirds per ha, while the adjacent cereal fields contained 0.4. Of the 14 species recorded, 8 have undergone rapid or moderate declines over the last 30 years. The most abundant bird was the declining species skylark Alauda arvensis.