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An organic farmer in the Cotswolds is leading the charge in helping two extremely rare birds by devoting an impressive 17 per cent of his fields to wildlife.

It is now widely recognised that game and other struggling farmland birds have a better chance of survival when over-winter supplementary grain is provided to sustain them over the leanest times of the year. But until now there has been no systematic research on how much of this costly, but life-saving food is wasted on rats and other undesirable pests.

A new study published in the science journal Biological Conservation identified that double the amount of uncultivated land currently being devoted to bees and other pollinators on farmland needs to be created to boost declining insects such as bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

Researchers at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), who are studying wild grey partridges – one of our fastest declining farmland birds – are hoping for a warm summer this year to repeat the breeding success of 2014, which saw an encouraging 18 per cent increase in grey partridges.

An army of farmers, gamekeepers and land managers looking after nearly one million acres of farmland turned out in their droves this winter to count their birds in the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s second Big Farmland Bird Count, which ran between 7 – 15th February.

An army of more than 2,000 farmers and gamekeepers who registered to take part in the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Big Farmland Bird Count will be out in force this week between 7 – 15th February to see how their conservation efforts are helping some of our most rapidly declining birds.

Alex Towns hung up his Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust boots last month (Monday 26 January) when he retired from the post of education and events assistant with GWCT Scotland.

Business, wildlife charities and farmers are uniting in Lincolnshire on the 25th February at Riseholme College, Lincoln in an effort to boost the prospects for one of this country’s fastest declining birds; the wild grey partridge.

The start of a new fund raising year for the Cambridgeshire committee of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) heralds the arrival of a new chairman: Toby Angel, who takes over from the well respected Richard Pemberton of Trumpington Farming Company. 

The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), supported by Limestone Journeys in partnership with Lesley Sharpe, a local farmland environment adviser will be giving Derbyshire farmers an opportunity of learning how to identify the everyday birds that live on their farms by attending a farmland bird ID day on the 5th February at Elmton, near Bolsover in Derbyshire.