Come the partridge revolutions
It has taken direct action to save this iconic gamebird and, thanks to two initiatives, it is now a conservation champion
How the little gamebird has become a champion of conservation. By Andrew Gilruth
Few birds can claim to have started a revolution. One, the grey partridge ( Perdix perdix), has the distinction of starting two. It was not supposed to be this way. Few conservationists expected this small gamebird to revolutionise the government’s approach to conservation. Certainly not twice. The partridge, which responds well to local conservation efforts, has become a conservation champion. It may be in national decline but an emerging network of farmers and sportsmen, who are willing to apply practical solutions, is helping all of us remain optimistic about the bird’s future.
The grey partridge has the potential to be prolific. Birds start breeding in their first summer and lay the largest clutch of any breeding bird species in Britain, averaging 15 or 16 eggs. Those conserving them can focus their efforts locally because grey partridges don’t migrate and are easy to observe. This has encouraged people to explore new ideas voluntarily, often motivated by the idea that, if numbers are high enough, they and their friends may occasionally shoot a few.
Firstly, grey partridges have revolutionised farmland conservation. Few recall that after the Second World War our national conservation effort focused on nature reserves. Mainstream conservation thinking saw wildlife on “modern” farms as doomed. However, grey partridge research conducted by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) helped change all that. The consensus was smashed by the late Dr Dick Potts. He proved that wildlife and modern farming could coexist. His grey partridge study site in Sussex showed how it could be done and
by the 1990s the government had begun to fund conservation on farmland.
Conservation features originally designed for partridges are beneficial to many other species and are now funded in their own right for the benefit of wider biodiversity on farmland. In a study of 48 farms, we found that farmland bird numbers were 24% higher on farms actively conserving their partridges in the GWCT count scheme. These amazing results were achieved because farmers and sportsmen had decided to focus on what they wanted: more partridges.
local groups
Today, there are 10 active partridge groups across the country, each one awarding a regional trophy for conservation excellence. Some are big, others small but they are all motivated by the love of seeing partridges on their land. These farmers have long seen the benefit of coordinating their efforts. This is why they have voluntarily formed their own groups and drawn on research and advice from the GWCT. Perhaps most importantly they are able to exchange ideas on what they find works locally for them.
The original grey partridge group was formed in Norfolk in 1986 by Julian Marsham (now the eighth Earl of Romney) from the Gayton estate. This group, which started with encouragement from Potts, continues to set the pace on what can be achieved and, perhaps more importantly, the motivation to keep trying. They arrange farm visits to share ideas and present their fiercely contested regional trophy. Last year it was presented to David Chandler of Albanwise, who counted 310 pairs across 1,800 hectares. Four years earlier he had just 41 pairs. This year the trophy went to Kevin Bowes of the Saham Hall estate near Watton. He is proud that the shoot, which lets some days commercially, can show that it is also “looking after the rest of our wildlife”. The judges also considered the work he had done in the past, which has resulted in them counting four pairs of common curlew and 15 pairs of stone curlew – a rare sight in lowland England today.
Despite its cryptic colouring, secretive behaviour during nesting and careful
choice of a concealed nest site, predation of partridge hens and their eggs is high. When this is compounded by bad summer weather, productivity can drop significantly, as it did in 2012. Small partridge chicks can only produce (by themselves) about a third of the heat necessary to keep warm; they must obtain the rest from brooding parents. Chicks can only feed for short periods before they again need warmth from brooding. This is exacerbated by wet weather, during which more chicks are lost.
At East Lothian, in Scotland, is a grey partridge group that is bucking the poor weather trend. Last year it awarded its trophy to Whitburgh Farms, which is the home of the GWCT’S Scottish Grey Partridge Recovery Project, because partridge abundance is regularly higher than average, despite poor weather and raptor predation.
The Cotswolds partridge group awarded its prize to George Ponsonby of Great Lemhill Farm, Lechlade, Gloucestershire in 2016 for working on a large scale. He is implementing conservation measures not only on his own ground but also on neighbouring fields, where he is contract farming. This has achieved good results over a significant area. As well as predator control, Ponsonby has good nesting cover, large amounts of flower-rich margins and his own equivalent of conservation headlands for broods, along with lots of over-winter stubbles and wild-bird mixes.
Royston project
The early success of these groups helped inspire the GWCT to start the 1,000ha Grey Partridge Recovery Project at Royston in Hertfordshire in 2002. The demonstration project, championed by Edward Darling of Greys Farm, Therfield, and other farmers, was designed to convince a wide group of farmers that grey partridge recovery is possible. Spring counts increased from 2.9 to 18.4 pairs per 100ha in five years. This achievement, and how it was done, helped inform other recovery projects, from individual farms to the Norfolk estate in Sussex and Northumberland estate at Alnwick.
One thing all these sites have in common is adequate food supply. The chicks hatch in mid to late June and are looked after by both parents, spending most of their time in cereals or other long grasses. In the first weeks of life, chicks feed mainly on insects, many of which live on weeds. The use of herbicides to kill these weeds reduces their food supply, therefore using these products with caution can help chick survival.
By late summer, surviving chicks, their parents and other adult birds form family groups of up to 20 birds, known as “coveys”. During this period, both young and adult birds survive mostly by gleaning grain and by feeding on the seeds of stubble weeds, such as black bindweed. In winter and spring, most grey partridges feed by grazing on growing cereals or alternatively on pastures, especially those containing clover.
In 2016, the GWCT Cornwall committee set up and funded a grey partridge restoration project at Tregirls near Padstow to help return partridges to Cornwall. The farm once supported a resident population of 200 to 300 grey partridges but the last birds
Chicks can only produce a third of the heat necessary to keep warm
were seen 10 to 15 years ago. Last autumn, five reared coveys – consisting of an adult pair with 10 or more chicks – were released on the 2,000-acre farm, part of the Prideaux-brune estate. It is an exciting time for Charlie Watson Smyth, who runs the farm, and all those committed to reversing local extinctions.
The reason that partridge groups work is size. Dr Dick Potts used to say that the minimum sized block of land that you can realistically manage for a successful wild population of grey partridges is a thousand acres. This problem arises because cock birds will leave the covey in early spring and go in search of a mate. He will never breed with a female from his own family covey. Now, if there are partridges everywhere, he may only have to cross two or three fields before he finds his ideal partner. At lower densities, he may have to wander a long way and, in some circumstances, may never actually find a mate. Therefore, on small areas, potentially you end up losing partridges over the farm boundary but don’t actually gain any back, especially if your neighbour is not managing the land for greys.
Another problem across a small area is trying to control predator numbers, as it will be invaded constantly from over the border if the surrounding land is not keepered. So, working with other farmers is the solution for many who are keen to help the little grey bird and, with it, other farmland wildlife.
second revolution
These partridge groups inspired the second revolution: wide-scale collaborative working – led by farmers. We call these “Farmer Clusters”. Today, farmers can join forces with neighbours to put together a landscapescale, joined-up plan for conservation that is now part of government policy. This approach is equally sensible for grey partridges, soil, water or just about anything else that farmers believe might be delivered more effectively across a wider area.
Peter Thompson, the GWCT’S biodiversity advisor and an expert on farmland habitats and wildlife, says that people often tell him, “That’s a great idea but farmers won’t work together as they are all so fiercely independent.” Well, in a nutshell, that is not what he found. When our CEO, Teresa Dent, rang the first five lead farmers she believed, based on her experiences of farmers working together, that they would want to do it. She was right. Land managers soon saw the benefits of working together over a larger area to deliver landscape-scale conservation.
The success of this approach stems from capturing the imagination and enthusiasm of farmers. It allows them to select and plan what works locally for them, rather than receiving prescriptive instructions from Natural England or Defra about what they “should be doing”. The idea of a “bottom up” approach is not new but the belief that it can work is. Under the guidance of a lead farmer, the GWCT began trialling five Farmer Clusters in 2012. Today, thanks to support from Natural England, the project has expanded to 50 voluntary Clusters across the country.
As Andrea Leadsom, former Environment Minister, said this year, Clusters are a “great example of how farmers can come together, at a landscape scale, to farm productively whilst delivering greater outcomes… such as boosting the number of grey partridge in Lincolnshire or harvest mice in Hampshire.”
Some conservationists are still struggling to accept that farmers do care about nature and can be trusted to lead on local conservation. Many still refer to farmers as “them and us” but that is changing and Farmer Clusters are now incorporated within existing government policy because the “top down” approach has not worked well enough. Clusters are also very much in Government thinking for post-brexit environmental policy.
These partridge groups triggered the dawn of a new age in conservation thinking. They have shown how to blend together successfully sound advice, existing conservation grants and the motivation of those willing to get involved and encourage each other. They have shown that letting farmers decide what they value and want to support can produce better results than conservation grants alone.
The success of these UK partridge groups is now also influencing European conservation. Dr Francis Buner, a senior conservation scientist at the GWCT, is working on an Eu-funded project to help farms in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium recover their partridges in areas where few or no partridges now exist and the farm environment is typically degraded. They will be looking at wild bird seed mixes along with beetle banks, winter stubbles and conservation headlands. There will also be additional winter feeding at all sites and improved predator management, where possible.
It is widely recognised that there is more to be gained from farmland than food. It is therefore fortunate that our research shows that there are many more practical measures that can be taken to offset the side-effects of modern farming on our wildlife, without significant hindrance to agriculture. Conservationists concerned for wildlife on farms ought not to feel that they are up against inevitabilities of the kind demonstrated by King Canute.
For more on how to recover your wild grey partridges, visit www.gwct.org.uk/pcs
Farmers join forces to put together a joined-up plan for conservation