2026

I visited one of our longest established floral field margins over the weekend. Stepping out of the truck prompted four skylarks to ascend, filling the sky with birdsong. This part of the farm is the bastion of the skylark, away from the wooded areas down by the village, these large open fields are their favorite place.

This spring, we have established 6.7 hectares of AB9 Winter Bird Seed Mix across our 320-hectare farm at the GWCT Allerton Project in Loddington. 

Radio-tagging and wing-tagging birds has been carried out by the GWCT for research purposes for many years. During the 60s and 70s, a National Game-Marking Scheme was set up by the GWCT to gain an understanding on how the release dates and ages of pheasants effected the overall percentage return.

At the Allerton Project, the research team aim to measure some of the ecosystem benefits of agroforestry and set them into a realistic farming example.

2026 sees the GWCT’s Big Farmland Bird Count return to its spiritual home of the Allerton Project, the GWCT’s research and demonstration farm on the Leicestershire-Rutland border, where it was originally launched in 2014.