By Steve Barker, Shropshire GWCT chairman
Now is the chance for any nature-loving farmer to do the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Big Farmland Bird Count. This is a project started by the GWCT back in 2014 to monitor breeding success of any farmland bird species, with some fascinating data being a result of the past ten years.
It is a very fun and simple task to tackle, requiring half an hour of your time watching any five-acre patch on your farm and estimating the quantity of each species you spot. You don’t really need to be a professional twitcher or ornithologist, although if you have a friend as such, even better.
Today, to identify your species there is a magical app you can get on your phone which, as you record any birdsong nearby, it will flag up a photo and name of the bird. It’s called Merlin, wonderful fun to use. If you’re an amateur like myself, it is a joyous experience and inspiring to know you could be providing invaluable data.
I have been doing the count since its start and get a real buzz out of it. Three years ago, when viewing a five-acre wild bird seed game cover patch, I counted 800-plus finches on camera lifting off the field like a swarm of bees. A magical sight which will stay with me forever. Conservation crops on shoots really can have a positive influence on biodiversity.
In 2024, 1,700 counts were submitted across the UK, totalling nearly 395,000 birds of 140 different species, 27 of which are on the red list. This was a fantastic achievement. We’d love to build on this.
On the farming side of things, isn’t it fabulous to see the nights drawing out, giving us the feel of spring approaching after what I’d term a horrible, gloomy, wet winter! Let’s hope we a have a beautiful spring – I think we deserve one.