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Buying a Christmas gift for the countryside man or woman that seems to have everything is one of those eternal wrangles that many of us face each year

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) has announced that its second Big Farmland Bird Count will take place between 7th and 15th February 2015. This leading UK research charity is asking farmers, landowners, birdwatchers and gamekeepers to spend 30 minutes recording the species and number of birds seen on one particular area of the firm this coming winter.

Efforts to secure a more promising future for hen harriers in England moved a little closer this week as an e- petition calling for Defra to publish its Hen Harrier Joint Recovery Plan achieved more than 10,000 signatures. This means that Defra is now obliged to respond in writing about their response.

GWCT research is becoming a beacon of light in an increasingly challenging environment for game and wildlife. As wildlife populations continue to decline, is there too much talk and not enough action? The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust will be posing this question at its 2014 Members’ Conference on the 29th October 2014. 

A 1.25 MILLION Euro EU Life+ funded project will help farmers in the Avon Valley between Salisbury and Christchurch reverse the fortunes of the iconic and much revered lapwing, which has suffered a dramatic decline over the past 20 years. The species is red-listed as a bird of conservation concern in the UK and conservationists believe that as well as habitat loss, predation of nests by foxes and crows is a major factor limiting lapwing recovery.

The appearance of new insect species, particularly grasshoppers and crickets on the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Allerton Project research farm in Leicestershire indicates that climate change is having an impact on wildlife, according to the Trust’s researchers.

Bird watchers could play a vital role in the conservation of one of our most secretive and elusive birds, by volunteering to go out counting woodcock during the summer months when the males are performing their enigmatic roding activity at dusk to attract receptive females.

This October the best-selling historian and journalist Sir Max Hastings is to give a talk on the outbreak of the First World War, with the proceeds going to the UK's leading wildlife research charity, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT).

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) is pleased to announce the winners of the third annual Julian Gardner Award photography competition. Shaun Barrow of Barnstaple in Devon has won the adult category for his dramatic picture of a cuckoo, while Mairi Eyres of Llangedwyn, Powys captured a delicate image of a beetle and has been named the winner of the 16-and-under category.

From the list of quarry species that the shooting community hold most dear, woodcock must be top of the list. Showing concern for its status, investing in research carried out by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, and willingly getting involved in projects that can help to conserve the bird, all go to prove that the elusive woodcock is a much treasured and prized species.