A GREY DAY
Richard Bath on shooting grey partridges and their plummeting numbers
It’s a dreich Saturday in October and the rain just won’t stop lashing down. Yet there is still an unusually keen air of anticipation among the eight guns who have assembled at Whitburgh, businessman Alastair Salvesen’s 2,500-acre farm just outside Pathhead in Midlothian. And it’s little wonder they are in expectant mood, because this is the first time any of these experienced guns will have shot wild grey partridge in Scotland for decades.
The story of how Whitburgh managed to produce a shootable population of 550 grey partridge despite having the highest density of buzzards recorded anywhere in Europe is a heartwarming tale that proves sensible conservation can work hand-in-hand with best farming practise to the benefit of all.
It’s also, hope the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), who partnered with Salvesen and his head keeper Graham Rankine on the project, a blueprint for a sustainable way ahead for what was once one of Scotland’s most iconic and formerly widespread avian quarry.
Forty or fifty years ago grey partridge were found all over Scotland, although they tended to concentrate around the hill edge in areas like the corridor from Crieff to Dundee, or in the Lothians. Sometimes erroneously referred to as ‘the English partridge’, the grey partridge – unlike the non-indigenous red-legged partridge, which could traditionally survive as far north as York until global warming kicked in and saw them established as far north as Moray – has always been indigenous to Scotland, especially in the east where it is traditionally drier.
‘Lots of places further north also used to be good for driving greys,’ says Dr Adam Smith, the director of the GWCT. ‘The hill edge in Scotland –
the bit between farmed, ploughed ground and heather – used to be famous for its driven wild grey population.
‘That transition zone where there’s a bit of ploughed land and a bit of stubble with neep in it, but also barley and grass, then you transition into the whins and gorse, that was their perfect habitat. That said, they’ve also always been found on the hill – I’ve seen wild populations at 1,500 feet in Glen Quaich.’
In the 1950s and 1960s the sight of large coveys of wild grey partridge was a common sight throughout Scotland, and even as recently as the 1980s there was a decent population of these indigenous birds. But then, for some reason, their numbers began to dwindle rapidly.
The main reason for this was the increased use of herbicides, which killed off those weeds which harboured the insects – such as sawflies, ants, caterpillars and spiders – which are the grey partridge chick’s only food for the first ten days of its life. With many chicks dying of starvation within barely a week of hatching, numbers suddenly went into an unstoppable decline.
There are other reasons, though. With less gamekeepers, and more of those keepers directing their efforts towards pheasants, the numbers of predators during this period grew quickly, while for many predators – such as badgers and buzzards – new legal protection has stopped culls.
At various other sites, local reasons also came into play. At Whitburgh, for example, during a 2012 study 12 radiotagged grey partridge were released. But in horribly wet weather, all 12 of these fine-feathered birds became so drenched that they came out from the safety of the hedgerows to dry out their plumage which made them incredibly vulnerable, with all 12 being eaten by raptors.
‘When we no longer had a sustainable population of wild greys we used to put down substantial numbers of them for driven days,’ says Salvesen. ‘But ten years ago I decided to take part in a GWCT trial to see if we could bring back wild greys by creating an environment in which they could thrive. We didn’t put down
any more greys, and hoped that the few stragglers left from the year before would breed. Just a few years on, we now have a shootable surplus.’
Whitburgh is one of ten shoots throughout Europe and two in Scotland – the other is Balgonie Farm near Cupar in Fife – who are working with the GWCT to see if they can bring back the grey partridge.
The plan was to put strips of game crop of up to five metres wide along the hedgerows to provide cover for the birds, but also to put in much larger square blocks of cover elsewhere so that predators like badgers and foxes can no longer simply walk along the strip and pick off any nesting birds.
In creating this haven for partridge, plants like phacelia and triticale – so both a pollinator and food source – have been used to produce what Smith calls ‘our holy grail’, a conservation crop which lasts for up to three years and which also provides both cover and food for the grey partridge.
‘The orthodoxy was that you needed to devote 12% of your land to such a project for it to work, but in all we gave over just 7% to game crops that were designed to help build a sustainable
“The grey partridge is an umbrella species, so when it thrives hares and songbirds also start to recover
population of wild greys, and it has worked,’ said Salvesen.
‘Crucially, devoting 7% of your farmland doesn’t mean you produce 7% less crops or livestock because some of the land around the margins is pretty marginal in any case. There are also grants available, although we didn’t seek any because we felt that the conditions were too onerous, and we wanted to be free to do what we feel works best.’
The plan hatched between Salvesen and the GWCT has certainly worked. Despite the continual rain – grey partridge are even more reticent to leave cover and fly in the rain than grouse or red-legs – covey after covey of grey partridge appeared in front of the guns. Low-flying and hugging the contours of the land like a slightly less rapid grouse, these canny wild birds offer a markedly different challenge to
red-legs, and so are more prized.
For Salvesen, bringing back an iconic species which was common in Scotland in his youth is reward enough, but for Smith the ramifications go far wider than merely giving field sports enthusiasts a quarry without having to put birds down.
‘The grey partridge is what we call an umbrella species, so when you create the conditions for it to thrive, you also create the conditions in which the numbers of songbirds and hares can also begin to recover,’ says Smith. ‘It’s a win-win for everyone.
‘No-one is doing this for the money, the real incentive for people like Alastair is the joy of doing something which he knows is good for the countryside. Alastair loves his shooting and he loves to know that he now has a modern farming system that’s providing food but is also allowing us to retain and safeguard our wildlife. That seems to be the motivation for people looking to reintroduce a grey population.’
The end result has undeniably been a success. Despite having the highest number of buzzards in Europe at 1.3 nests per square kilometre across Whitburgh’s 1,000 hectares, the number of grey partridge on the farm has gone from a few stragglers to 550 greys in just ten years.
As for the guns, Salvesen’s crew was made up of committed countrymen, an experienced party who shot just 30 birds but relished the triumph of quality over quantity, while the beaters and keepers enthused over a chance to take part in what was a historic day. ‘What a brilliant experience,’ said one gun. ‘That was so much better for the soul than a big driven day. I somehow felt more at one with nature.’
Who could argue with those noble sentiments?
“The number of grey partridge has gone from a few stragglers to 550 in a handful of years