How farmers can lift bird numbers

Farmers could help reverse the dramatic decline of farmland birds over the past 40 years if given the funding and support to manage their land in a wildlife-friendly way.

Research published in Animal Conservation tracked the changes in the abundance of birds on farms over six years. It involved 60 farms under Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) from 2008 to 2014, revealing 12 of the 17 priority farmland bird species showed an increase in population.

This is in stark contrast to the 56 per cent decline in farmland birds since 1970. The Farmland Bird Index, one of the most important measures of biodiversity, also increased by between 31 per cent and 97 per cent on land involved in the study.

The average response of priority bird species to HLS management was an increase of 163 per cent, meaning numbers more than doubled. Samantha Herbert