Auchnerran Blog

Dr Dave Parish introduces the 2020 Auchnerran Annual Report, available now.

On 19th April we highlighted an increase in the number of lapwing clutches predated by badgers at Auchnerran, our Scottish demonstration farm. Now, almost a month later, we can provide an update. 3 minute read.

It’s that exciting time of year again when waders start to drift back to their breeding grounds. At Auchnerran, we noticed the first flock of about 40 lapwing on 20 February, which had quickly increased to almost 120 by the 23rd.

It has taken a tremendous effort to achieve, not helped at all by the covid-19 restrictions which slowed things down considerably of late, but the finished buildings are fantastic.

The free-to-use Epicollect App was first developed by Imperial College in London. It provides collection of information through creation of questionnaire forms and can store locational information both on- and off-line, which makes it very useful for a variety of area-based surveys.

Our placement students organised a small trail-camera study to try to capture any action on our newly established wader scrapes. This revealed that there were indeed some waders hanging around and one or two other things as well…

Dr David Parish talks us through what's been happening at the Game & Wildlife Scottish Demonstration Farm at Auchnerran, on the publication of its first annual report.

No wonder they have a day dedicated to them each year. But curlew are in dire straits. They have declined across Scotland by 61% (1995 to 2016), twice the rate in England. This is worrying as Scotland holds around 60% of the UK population or approximately a whopping 15% of the world population of this globally declining species. Something needs to be done to help them.