Country Diary

Within a generation the landscape of Galloway has changed with the climate but how do you explain the moving goalposts to game chicks?

Climate change is a vastly underrated issue in the British countryside. There is no doubt that parts of this country are now significantly wetter than they were previously, and statistics show that western Scotland receives 25 per cent more rain than it did in the 1960s. This is just an average, and it scarcely captures the misery of extended wet periods such as the summer of 2012 when spring folded sadly into autumn in a relentless spray of water. However you choose to explain it, there is no question that some parts of Britain are becoming significantly soggy.

This has direct knock-on effects for wild game in the hills, not least because heather burning depends on dry conditions in February and March. In five years on our syndicate ground, we’ve probably had fewer than 20 days where burning might have been worthwhile. The ground is often so soft that we’ve even struggled to access the hill with quad bikes. Compare that with moors in the east of the country, where burning days are far easier to come by and the problem is more likely to be excessive dryness.

Knock-on effects

The same processes have knock-on effects on lower ground where farming practices have been dramatically altered by wetter weather. In a single human generation, hay has almost vanished from the landscape in Galloway. Haymaking machinery that once served as a linchpin for farm businesses has been made utterly obsolete; it is now possible to buy functional, hard-working balers and Haybobs for the equivalent of pocket money. The grassland world has shifted towards silage because it is far less dependent upon good weather conditions and can be harvested en masse.

Crucially, the wet weather has bumped the old country calendar out of sync. The traditional time for making hay in Scotland was the week of the Royal Highland Show, which farmers of my grandfather’s generation used to look forward to because it meant that the summer’s hay was “in the bank”. This loosely coincides with the traditional hatch date for grey partridges and often blackgrouse.

Good weather is now so unreliable in late June that we have been forced to abandon a cornerstone of the agricultural year — imagine what an impact this change has had on partridge chicks, which do not get to choose when they hatch. Game bird chicks are highly vulnerable in their first few days of life and good weather is vital. Cold, wet chicks need to be brooded by their parents, but warm youngsters can just soak up the sun.

One of the greatest joys of breeding grey partridges in captivity is watching the chicks nod off in the sunshine, and you can almost watch them grow before your eyes in good weather. Wild birds have not often had this luxury over the past decade.

Since moving house in April, I’ve been on an agricultural crash course. My wife and I bought an old farmhouse with a few acres of rough grassland, which works well with my ambition to breed pedigree Galloway cattle. A confusion of paperwork meant that we could not have any livestock on the farm throughout the summer and, while we were maddened by the bureaucracy that accompanies modern farming, we decided to take our chances on making hay instead. Sure enough, the weather was patchy and wet throughout June and July, and there was no chance of drying the grass even in August. The mowers finally came in early September and we succeeded in salvaging almost 200 small bales from what might otherwise have been a total write-off.

The experience was a crucial lesson in farming but it also had relevance to wild game. Hay dries quickly and can be baled in two or three days when the weather is right, and the recipe for making good hay overlaps perfectly with the timing and requirements of young game birds. Put simply, a good crop of hay sets the scene for a good crop of partridges.

Of course there are many factors that have led to the decline of wild game species over the past 50 years, but the demise of haymaking provides a useful indicator to show how far the weather situation has moved in just a few decades. It is tempting to give up hope when Mother Nature seems to conspire against us, but wild partridge conservation has not become impossible — it has simply become more challenging.

“Cold, wet chicks need to be brooded by their parents but warm ones can soak up the sun”

Patrick Laurie is a project manager at the Heather Trust. He has a particular focus on blackgrouse conservation and farms Galloway cattle in south-west Scotland.

On lower ground, farming practices such as haymaking have been greatly altered by wetter weather