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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.

According to a comprehensive new report on Europe’s wildlife and natural habitats, one in three European birds are now endangered, with once common species such as turtle doves, corn bunting and grey partridge plunging to an all-time low.

Past winners of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s annual Grand Grouse Draw have waxed lyrical of their amazing prize – not quite believing they have won the opportunity to experience one of the UK’s top sporting challenges. The GWCT is now giving you the chance to win a thrilling day’s driven grouse shooting for eight guns at Horseupcleugh grouse moor in the Lammermuir Hills during the 2016 season.

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.

Wildlife managers are being urged to attend a training course at Yetholm, near Kelso on Thursday 23 April to bring them up to date on tunnel trapping.

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.

The Game & Wildife Conservation Trust (GWCT) is to hold a special shoot management day at Ripley Castle, North Yorkshire on Saturday 9 May.

An international conference jointly organised by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) and the French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Wareham, Dorset this month marked the end of the three year collaborative EU Interreg funded MorFish (Monitoring for Migratory Fish) Project, which included the investigation of the dramatic 70 per cent decline of Atlantic salmon observed in recent years.

Rearing smarter pheasants, woodcock satellite tracking and black grouse recovery will be among the fascinating research projects that will be featured on the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s stand at the CLA Game Fair at Harewood House, nr Leeds this year.