estate
Good news for farmland wildlife Dr Dave Parish, Head of Lowland Research, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Scotland It is an exciting time for the Interreg North Sea Region PARTRIDGE project in which the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is a partner. Originally due to finish in 2020 it has been extended until 2023 to provide more time to further our demonstration activities. The project (Protecting the Areas Resources Through Researched Innovative Demonstration of Good Examples) aims to show practitioners and policy makers across northern Europe some simple, practical ways to help Grey Partridge and other farmland wildlife, and in so doing, how agri-environment schemes might be improved in the future to better support farmers in their efforts to achieve this. There are 10 demonstration sites across northern Europe with activities coordinated by the
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, with help from our many partners. Our demonstration sites in Scotland at Balgonie and Whitburgh are looking great with the new flower blocks maturing nicely and supporting a range of farmland birds and other wildlife. These blocks provide year-round resources for wildlife but require minimum intervention after establishment, ideal for farmers and biodiversity. Grey Partridges at Balgonie, for example, are doing well, with spring pairs increasing by 36 per cent since the project began and autumn numbers stable at around 28 birds per 100 ha, despite this year’s wet summer. There is no better way to get a message across than getting the wellies on and showing others what we are trying to do on the ground,
and a very important part of the project is showing farmers and policy makers what we are doing and how. We regularly take groups round the sites including a recent farmer group and some advisors from SNH. These visits also provide a great opportunity to canvass the opinions of others: our ideas might be wonderful but if farmers think they are unworkable, we are wasting our time. This is something we want to explore further with a questionnaire we are developing with partners, to see what farmers across Europe think of agrienvironment schemes and how they might be improved. The survey should be available during early 2020 so keep an eye out for more details. For more information about the project, please visit our website: http://northsearegion. eu/partridge/
East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership a stronghold for mountain hares Estates in the East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership (ECMP) are preparing to undertake the second year of mountain hare monitoring using the new methodology published by Scottish Natural Heritage last year. In the last few months of 2018, Balmoral, Invercauld, Mar and Glenavon estates surveyed 10 sites covering a total area of 40 sq km (15.4 square miles), all of which were on grouse moors. Mountain hares were observed in all survey areas, with an average of 16 mountain hares encountered per kilometre walked by surveyors. In SNH’s commissioned research into mountain hare counting methods, an encounter rate of 8 hares per kilometre walked suggested an estimated density of between 57 and 136 hares per square kilometre. That would suggest an estimated population of at least 2,000 mountain hares on the area that was surveyed, around 13% of the ECMP moorland managed for grouse. These results need to be treated cautiously as 2018/19 was the first year of counting using the new methodology. However, surveys in the ECMP area revealed both the highest individual count and an average that was markedly higher than across all Scottish sites counted during 2018/19 with the same methodology. The surveys conducted in the ECMP were based on the night-time counting methodology set out in the SNH report, which specifies the use of either lamps or thermal imaging equipment to count