at our demonstration farm at Loddington, home of The Allerton Project (see page 12), has gone into the new Entry Level Stewardship scheme which was approved by Brussels in December 2004. We have also been advising Defra on how to implement the EU soil management requirements at farm level. The largest farmland insect study undertaken in Europe was completed by our Entomology Department this year (see page 46). Only a few farmland birds, like the linnet, don’t rely on insects to feed their chicks, most of the others need high-protein insect diets to help their chicks grow and fledge. This simple fact is what makes the work of our Entomology Department so central to conservation. Predation too has been a consistent theme in much of our work, and whereas some, like our improvement of mink control, contribute directly to helping game and river keepers (see page 56), others like our Upland Predation Experiment at Otterburn, are designed primarily to inform policy. This project has now reached its halfway milestone. So far the results suggest that gamekeeping does have a positive effect on the breeding success and population size in some of the ground-nesting waders (see page 64). The next four years will see this project reach completion. Sadly many of our game animals have fared badly in the face of intensive land-use and many are the subjects of species recovery programmes under the Government’s Biodiversity Action Plan. We play a key role in guiding this work for several species and habitats. We are delighted to have hit the interim Biodiversity Action Plan target for black grouse, and we expect to hit the equivalent target for the grey partridge in 2005. A new research project in 2004 was the grey partridge re-introduction project designed to identify the best method of re-introducing greys into areas of very low population or local extinction (see page 32). One could describe this project as the one we were all hoping to avoid, but the 86% decline between 1970 and 2001 has made it essential. Finally, I am happy to report that the Trust had a good financial year in 2004 and our accounts can be found at the end of this Review (see pages 86-89).
Review of 2004
Grey partridges on our rearing field at Fordingbridge being reared for release in our new partridge reintroduction project. (Sophia Miles)
7