Gold in the game cover
Planting songbird-friendly game crops aids conservation and has resulted in flocks of finches in the field
Encourage finches with songbird-friendly mixes, says David Tomlinson
Some years ago, a friend of mine, an avid birdwatcher and professional ecologist, undertook detailed bird surveys on a number of farms in East Kent. His major finding is unlikely to surprise readers of The Field: on land where there was an organised shoot he found songbirds in much greater variety, and numbers, than he did where there was no shooting. This, of course, is hardly surprising and work by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) has often proven this to be the case. However, I suspect that until my friend undertook this survey he wasn’t in favour of shooting but his findings were sufficient for him to regard the sport in a different light.
It’s not difficult to see why shoots invariably support more songbirds, for land managed for game invariably means the widespread planting of game cover. What is more, recent years have seen a move away from maize to more interesting seed mixes that not only do an excellent job in holding gamebirds but also attract and support a wide variety of other birds, in particular finches and buntings.
On some commercial shoots it’s easy to get the impression that the abundance of small birds to be found in their game crops and around their feeders is an accidental bonus that nobody is particularly bothered about. However, it’s rare to find a gamekeeper who doesn’t take pleasure from the flocks of small birds he shares his days with, while an increasing number of commercial shoot owners have come to appreciate that a shoot is much more acceptable to the
The linnet needs plenty of weed seeds for feeding throughout the year
local community if it can be seen to be of genuine benefit to wildlife in general.
The reason why so many shoots rely on maize for their cover crops is simple: it’s cheap and reliable, usually standing until the end of the shooting season. The downside of maize is that it is a crop much loved by both rats and pigeon. Switching to a pheasant and finch mix (typically millet, sorghum, spring triticale, linseed, kale and quinoa) will cost about 30% more per acre. However, for a shoot planting 50 acres of cover that’s an additional spend of only £800, a small price to pay for producing a habitat that is not only more attractive to wildlife, including bees and other pollinators, but is also much more pleasing to the eye.
locating the linnet
One of the chief beneficiaries of a finchfriendly mix is the linnet. This is a species that has suffered widespread decline in lowland England and Wales during the past 20 years. However, despite falling numbers, linnets were found in virtually every 10-kilometre-square patch in England, Wales and Ireland during the most recent BTO survey,
Bird Atlas 2007-11. The linnet is a proper country finch and, unlike greenfinches and goldfinches, rarely comes to gardens or feeders. Its needs are simple: thick hedges or overgrown bramble bushes for nesting and roosting; plenty of weed seeds for feeding throughout the year.
Dandelions are an important food source for young linnets, so farmers are urged to tolerate a few weeds in improved grassland. In the winter, stubbles with a strong regeneration of weeds have long been an important food source but one that is much rarer today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Wild-bird cover is an invaluable substitute, providing sufficient seeds to keep the birds fed throughout the winter.
To the practised eye and ear, linnets are easy to identify. For much of the year they are invariably seen in flocks, the birds rising noisily when flushed but soon dropping down again. Visible field marks are few for, from a distance, they appear to be streaky brown. Such a lack of features can confuse but the calls, behaviour and habitat are all vital clues to their identity. Winter-plumaged birds are indeed brown but a cock in the spring is a handsome fellow with red forehead and striking red breast.
Unlike the declining linnet, the chaffinch is thriving in the British Isles and the only real Left: greenfinch (Carduelis chloris) populations have been decimated by trichomonosis. Above: linnets
(Carduelis cannabina) are often seen in flocks cause for concern are local declines caused by the contagious disease trichomonosis. One of the reasons for the chaffinch’s success is its adaptability but it is also a species that benefits from wild-bird cover. Our resident chaffinches are highly sedentary, rarely moving far from where they hatched, but they are joined every autumn by a big influx from the Continent, so the flocks we flush from the game cover may well be birds from Scandinavia.
With the chaffinches will be bramblings, another migrant from Scandinavia, and in winter plumage they look much like a chaffinch. The best field mark is the white rump that flashes conspicuously as the birds fly away from you. The number of wintering bramblings in Britain varies from year to year, so in some years they are comparatively scarce, in others much more numerous. Their favoured winter food is beech mast but when the beech mast is exhausted they will move onto farmland in search of food, often flocking in game cover with other finches.
Greenfinches are found throughout the British Isles and though they have a strong association with urban areas, are a familiar feature in most mixed finch flocks. This is a bird that was thriving in the UK until 2005, when trichomonosis was first recorded. Today, trichomonosis remains a major concern and has caused many local population crashes. What was until recently one of our commonest garden birds, flocking in numbers to feeders, has disappeared from some areas and declined markedly in others.
Curiously, though trichomonosis affects a number of bird species, including sparrowhawks and turtle doves, there are others that seem to be immune to it. It doesn’t seem to affect tree sparrows, though few farmland birds have undergone such a widespread decline in our countryside. What was a common and abundant bird in the 1970s is now a rarity in many counties. Shoots that work to encourage their grey partridges often have tree sparrows, for what benefits the former is also a great help to the latter. Young