By Georgia Gargett, Scottish Lowlands Placement Student
As spring arrives in the Scottish Lowlands and the mornings start to creep earlier and earlier, it means it’s time for the Lowlands team to complete the annual partridge spring pair surveys at Balgonie Estate. Each year, around Valentine’s Day in fact, our favourite lovebirds begin to pair up.
The surveys take place during peak partridge hours: three hours after dawn and again three hours before dusk. These early starts and late finishes seem somewhat daunting at first but there is no better time to not only see partridges but also to hear the cacophony that is the early morning bird chorus. Roaming through the fields you might hear several skylarks hovering above with their tuneful chattering, great tits chiming in with their bold calls that seem comically oversized for their small stature, and occasionally the odd yellowhammer twittering along the hedgerows.
This year was also blessed with a period of fantastic weather. Warm and dry with a bright sunshine making the 5am wake-ups a little more bearable. The counts were completed three times with the max count recorded as our partridge population. Our surveys entail driving along alternate tramlines or walking when driving seems too precarious, and scanning the surrounding crop for the rather subtle partridge silhouettes. Often, a dark birdish shape in the grass gets the heart racing, only to promptly disappoint by being a smug squawking pheasant. The pheasant pairs on the farm are lovely sightings, of course, but not what the partridge surveys are after. Not to worry, as we had our fair share of partridge sightings – with most of them coupled up. But for data clarity’s sake we recorded the extra male a singleton.
This season, we recorded 27 partridge pairs and 5 singletons—a notable dip from last year’s 40 pairs and 4 singles. However, the suspected dip is not as bad as first seems. Several fields were unsurveyable this year due to farming activities, which meant fewer hectares covered. After crunching the numbers, the density worked out to 5.4 pairs per hectare — compared to 6.2 in 2023 and 5.9 in 2024. Still a dip, yes, but one more explainable by the usual factors. Things like autumn weather and chick survival rates play a significant role. As well, the annual student turnover has a part to play. Observer bias can be a key factor in these kinds of surveys, and spotting well-camouflaged partridges in the long grass comes a bit easier to some than to others. To minimise this, we consistently use multiple observers following a standardised protocol, conduct at least three survey repetitions and use the maximum count recorded.
So, while numbers may seem down slightly, our hopes for the Balgonie partridge populations remain high. Here’s hoping that this year lovely couples will hatch their broods into thriving autumn coveys. And come autumn, the lowlands team will be back out in the fields once more to spot some delightful parent partridges and their fledglings.