Grey Partridge Recovery Project 2007

Key findings

• The number of spring pairs on the demonstration area in 2007 was 6 times higher than at the 2002 start.
• Autumn numbers in 2007 have increased 11-fold on the demonstration area.
• Equivalent figures for the increases on the reference area were 3.2 and 3.2 times respectively.

Our grey partridge recovery project at Royston has completed its fifth full year. It seeks to demonstrate how to restore numbers of wild grey partridges, as part of our role as lead partner for the grey partridge under the UK Government’s Biodiversity Action Plan.

The demonstration area is south-west of Royston, Hertfordshire on 1,000 hectares of arable land on chalk, surrounded by a reference area of similar size. Based on landscape type and partridge-specific management, we expect to achieve a spring density of 18.6 grey partridge pairs per 100 hectares (250 acres) from the predictions in our book, A Question of Balance.  The spring pair count in 2007 was just two pairs short of our predicted density.

Our management includes habitat creation, predation control and supplementary feeding. Since the project began in 2002, habitat improvement has continued on the demonstration area. Set-aside, Countryside Stewardship, Entry Level and Higher Level Schemes, now amounts to 18% of land area, providing nesting cover, and insect-rich brood-rearing habitat (in the form mainly of wildlife mixtures and game-cover crops) covers 10% of land area.

Predation control is targeted at foxes, mustelids, rats and corvids. We provide supplementary wheat in hoppers from autumn to late spring, with at least two hoppers per grey partridge pair. 

We count the partridges in March (spring pair counts) and just after harvest (autumn counts). We record the sex of all grey partridge adults, and in the autumn counts, the number of young birds present in each covey.  Owing to an exceptionally warm autumn and winter 2006/07, grey partridges started pairing in December, and most had paired by the end of January. 

The spring pair density was 18.4 pairs of grey partridges per 100 hectares on the demonstration area.  This represented an increase of 42% on the previous year and six times as many as at the beginning of the project (see Figure 1).  On the adjacent reference area, stocks had risen to 4.2 pairs per 100 hectares.

The weather continued to break records as the year progressed, and the spring and summer were the wettest since 1912 and the coolest for 10 years.  The expectation for chick production were correspondingly low.  The 2007 autumn counts showed that grey partridge productivity on the demonstration area was down relative to 2006 (young-to-old ratio of 1.5 versus 2.6). 

The overall densities of grey partridges in the autumn stood at 83.8 birds per 100 hectares, a 5% drop relative to 2006, but still  11 times higher than wehn we started (see Figure 1). On the reference area, although reproductive success was slightly higher than on the demonstration area (young-to-old ratio of 2.1), overall autumn density fell by 30% relative to the previou syear, to 17.9 birds per 100 hectares.

In five years, we have brought the denisty of grey partridges on the demonstration area to within a whicker of our initial prediciton.  That is cause for celebrations, and we thank all the farmers on the study area for their co-operation.  From 2008 onwards, we will capitalise on this success by organising an extensive programme of visits and events at Royston.