Blog

Birds
The migrants are back. After a slow start, due to cold weather, numbers of whitethroat, yellow wagtail and swallow recorded are now close to last year’s numbers. Highlights so far are the two lapwing displaying and six yellow wagtails on one of our spring bean fields.
Twelve of the fifteen occupied starling boxes have now hatched and the adults are now frantically hunting for leatherjackets and grubs in our pastures to feed the young. As part of our research we have colour ringed and measured all the starling chicks. Colour ringing allows us to monitor the fate of individually marked birds throughout the remainder of the year.

Crops
All the fertiliser and pesticide applications to the crops are upto date. The wheat and spring beans are looking in good condition and we are hopeful that they will produce decent yields at the end of the season. The oilseed rape is poorer not helped by heavy pigeon grazing in March and April.

Yellow Wagtail trial.
In this trial, centred on our set-aside, we are testing alternative management measures to create suitable late-season nesting habitat by manipulation of cereal stubbles. The stubble manipulations include using a contact herbicide, scarifying the soil and sowing a low rate of barley. This trial was initiated following RSPB Research demonstrating that whilst Yellow Wagtails early season nesting attempts were frequently made in winter cereal fields late season nesting became far more difficult as the crop becomes too tall and dense. We will be monitoring how the various manipulations affect the vegetation structure of the stubbles.

Future Open Days.

We will be opening the farm for a number of open days this year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:
Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

April’s here it must mean the start of summer monitoring
It is always an exciting time looking forward to seeing the results of another breeding season. The research team started the summer monitoring at the start of April.  This consists of recording all birds seen and heard from a minimum of ten whole farm surveys. From these we are then able to assess the number of territories for each species. Activity started slowly due to the cold weather with the starlings, robins, yellowhammer and linnets several weeks than last year. The skylarks have also been delayed with their first nesting attempts. Lapwing are again displaying regularly over one of the spring bean fields, there can be no doubt that this charismatic bird has benefited from our decision to sow a spring crop.

As well as the bird monitoring and nest finding we will continue to record the moths, butterflies, bees on the farm as well as monitoring the vegetation within our research margins and skylark plots.

Cropping

From a cropping perspective, we look to be ahead of schedule with the spring beans planted a month earlier this year than last. The dry but frosty weather allowed us to sow our only spring crop in early March. Snow and rain followed towards the end of the month slowing subsequent growth in all the crops but by mid April all the crops had recovered. The oilseed rape and winter wheat responded quickly to the fertiliser applied and do not look too bad.
 
Insect rich habitat

The contractor has sown a number of new pollen and nectar mixtures, in early April, as part of our agri-environment scheme agreement. These will provide flowering plants including phacelia, red clover, birds foot trefoil throughout spring and summer to supply food for insects such as butterflies and bumblebees.  In addition, we have just established the farmyard demonstration plots with a cornfield annual mix including the colourful corn chamomile, corn marigold, corncockle and field poppy. This will create a colourful area close to the house and provide an insect-rich habitat.

Garden gets a makeover

We spent the winter improving the garden with the advice from the team leading the Homes for wildlife Project. www.rspb.org.uk/hfw. For those that do not know Homes for Wildlife is designed to provide positive practical steps, for any sized garden, to help some of our most familiar garden wildlife species. A new pond was created alongside a hibernaculum, we replanted several beds and will be adding extra tubs and planters this summer. I am looking forward to see if this has any impact on our small House Sparrow population.

Future Open Days.

We will be opening the farm for a number of open days this year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:
Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

Winter bird monitoring.
We monitor wintering birds on the whole farm and divide the records into field or boundary categories. The whole farm counts are completed on a monthly basis from October through to February. These counts have shown that birds at Hope Farm are not only flourishing in the breeding season. A look at some individual species reveals some very interesting trends. The mean counts of Yellowhammers rose to 111 this winter from 1 in 2000/01, reed bunting 25.3 from 2.3 and skylark 120.6 compared with 18.3 in 2000/01. This shows some of the real progress that has been made since we purchased the farm.
Other sightings over the winter period included counts of 150 fieldfares, 150 linnets, 100 starlings, 4 buzzards and several barn owls. I hope that figures crossed, this year we will be able to add Barn Owl as a breeding bird.

Demonstration Plots
Although a quiet time from a cropping perspective, we have still had a busy period on farm. The contractors started work at the start of the New Year on a project centred primarily within the farmyard and neighbouring grass field that will allow the site to expand its demonstration value by adding a series of plots. These will display options already within agri-environment schemes but not already demonstrated on the farm, important policy areas such as crops grown for biofuels or bioenergy as well as our latest research.

Alternative method of establishing skylark plots
During trials on Hope Farm and on a wider basis in the SAFFIE project, skylark plots in winter wheat fields have been shown to extend the breeding season for skylarks and to increase the number of chicks successfully leaving the nest. Due to this success they have been included in Environmental Stewardship, Entry Level Scheme (ELS), although the uptake has been poor to date.
Until now, plots in ELS agreements were established as undrilled areas during the sowing phase. However, a number of farmers have indicated that this presents them with significant problems. To reflect their concerns we are currently trialling an alternative strategy of spraying some of the plots out using glyphosate. 25% of the plots will be undrilled (already established), as in previous years. The other 75% will be sprayed out during winter 2007/08 with 25% in December, 25% in January and 25% in February. The vegetation in each plot will be monitored during the summer months to assess which month provides a similar structure to the undrilled plots.

Future Open Days.
We will be opening the farm for a number of open days this year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:
Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

Harvest results
A slow harvest finished at the start of September when the spring beans were finally harvested with results from all crops disappointing. Wheat yields (variety Robigus) were down 17% from last year’s 10.4t/ha to 8.64t/ha. This was in line with the national trend. Spring beans (variety Syncro) averaged 2.56t/ha down from 3.1t/ha last year. There were large variations between the fields. At one end of the spectrum 1.23t/ha on the “lapwing field” whilst the highest yields were 3.92t/ha. The oilseed rape averaged 2.4t/ha with overall the minimum tilled fields, or part fields performing slightly better than the broadcast ones. However, this is not the whole story as the overall gross margin for the broadcast are likely to be higher. Although the yields were disappointing the overall profitability of the farm will be at it’s highest due to the high wheat pices. This year we sold the majority of the wheat at over £150 per tonne compared to £70 last year.

This years cropping
Crops for this year include 78.91 ha winter wheat (Oakley), 43.15 ha oilseed rape (expert) and 31.35 ha spring beans (Syncro). We will be maintaining our set-aside for this coming harvest at approximately 14hectares because of agreed long-term research commitments. The 14 hectares comprises the 6 hectares of non-rotational set-aside in wildbird cover, 6 metre margins and 8 hectares of rotational set-aside which is being used for the yellow wagtail trial. 

Winter bird numbers
The first whole farm count of the 2007/08 winter took place in October. Despite some significant changes on the ground, i.e. no long term set-aside, the counts were very high. The total count was 1329 birds, the second highest count recorded, of 41 species (joint highest species richness). However, when 'game' birds such as pheasant and red-legged partridge, and woodpigeon are excluded it is the highest count recorded - 1002 birds. More proof that we are doing something right here. Highlights were: 153 yellowhammers (highest count), 102 skylarks, 70 redwing (highest count) and 53 robins (highest count). One stonechat and three corn buntings were recorded. Skylark numbers have continued to rise since the October count with 170 recorded on the broadcast oilseed rape fields alone in the last few days. Another whole farm count will be completed shortly.

Communications
The farm has had some good exposure over the last few months, featuring on Countryfile and Farming Today. We have also had a short piece in Farmers Weekly featuring our results from this year. Darren Moorcroft gave an excellent presentation about the farm at the RSPB AGM and Chris Bailey has given six local members group talks around the country.

Future Open Days.
We will be opening the farm for a number of open days next year so if you would like to visit the farm then please get in touch with chris.bailey@rspb.org.uk. The dates are shown below:

Farmers Open Days: 21st May, 24th May,
Public Open Days: 7th June, 9th July 

Harvest
It has been a frustrating couple of weeks with heavy showers hindering the start of the wheat harvest. The oilseed rape was harvested three weeks ago. Unfortunately, the seed had a high moisture content resulting in additional drying costs. Yields were approximately 2.5t/ha. Post harvest cultivations started immediately after the oilseed rape harvest in preparation for the sowing of the wheat in September. We expect the spring beans to be harvested in September although the yields are likely to be poor.

Birds
On a more positive note, 2007 has been the best so far for birds. The final bird numbers have been calculated following the summers surveying. Stars this year were the Yellowhammer. Numbers reached a new high with 36 territories recorded compared to 14 when we first surveyed the farm in 2000. The population has risen steadily over recent years, helped by our sympathetic management of hedgerows, increased winter food through wild bird cover and two year set-aside and summer food through provision of pollen and nectar mixtures. Overall, the Hope Farm Farmland Bird Index (FBI) is up by 88 % at the end of the 2007. This is a measurement of the collective population trend of the 19 bird species that are most dependant on farmland in the UK. Species that contribute to the FBI include the corn bunting, goldfinch, grey partridge, jackdaw, kestrel, lapwing, linnet, reed bunting, rook, skylark, starling, stock dove, tree sparrow, turtle dove, yellowhammer, yellow wagtail, whitethroat and woodpigeon.

Set-aside
It has been an interesting trying to assess what effect the proposed 0% Set-aside requirement for next year will have on the farms management and subsequent effects on bird populations. At Hope Farm we will be keeping about 6% out of production in 2008 irrespective of the EU decision because of our long-term research commitments so any announcement will later this month result in few changes for the next year.