Nowhere for grey partridges to nest

Though I was not surprised to read of that sad state of affairs regarding the grey partridge (News, 20 January), l feel the need to add to the picture, under the heading of “changes in agricultural practices”.

I would suggest that sheep have a massive impact when it comes to the decline in partridge numbers. If

I go back to my youth in the lowlands some 50 years ago, you rarely set eyes on sheep in spring and summer. Perhaps some would be brought down from the hills for a spell of winter grazing; back then, the lowlands had a good sprinkling of gamekeepers keeping the corvids under control. The fields were full of skylarks, yellowhammers, curlew and partridges with few sheep or badgers to speak of.

There are now more sheep than you could shake a stick at. This would appear to be backed up by 2015 NFU figures. It seems now everyone and his brother has sheep, 15million in the UK in 2020 according to Defra, fuelled and aided by farm payments, subsidies and grants.

If I may climb on to my high horse for a moment and gaze across the dying countryside, what can I see? Catastrophic destruction, pits and ponds filled in and used as dumps, filled with rubbish, ‘dewilding’, grubbing up and tidying any bits of wild areas, which are sadly labelled as waste or unproductive ground.

If I were a partridge, where might I nest? Hedges everywhere nowadays are flailed to within an inch of their lives. The landscape has changed dramatically since the tractor-driven flail loomed, and hedge-cutting practice now seems to include flailing the bramble and nettle at the hedge bottoms, banks and verges. What’s left of the hedge bottoms is now browsed a yard high right up to the stow by the ever-increasing numbers of sheep, so no cover there.

The buzzards are soon to be joined by the red kites circling by day, the largest ever recorded numbers of British badgers — higher concentrations than anywhere in Europe — with their cousin the mink and soon perhaps to be joined by the pine marten, marauding by night.

Sheep and cattle antiparasite chemicals pass into the already poisoned and compacted soil structure. Throw into the pot the highest number of corvids that I have ever known, the ever-present use of pest/herbicides — and not forgetting that sheep eat eggs — what do you think of my chances of raising a brood?

G K

Robinson, by email