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There was, apparently, an arrival of wheatears on the south coast last Saturday, and one popped up in snowy Northants too, but it’s pretty quiet on the migrant front.
I was talking to a farmer in Lincolnshire last week who was telling me that there will be plenty of skylark patches in fields this year – few of them intended. The cold weather and water-logged soils will have reduced the growth rate of the autumn-sown cereals and standing water in some places may have killed them off completely.
The switch from spring-sown to autumn-sown cereals in the 1970s, aided by more effective herbicides and plant breeding, was one of the most important changes in British farming for wildlife – certainly for birds. It greatly reduced the amount of overwintering stubble fields in the countryside (and thus reduced food available to seed-eating birds). The great advantage to the farmer was that autumn-sown crops (provided they are not overrun by weeds which is where the herbicides are important) are in the soil and ready to grow as soon as the spring weather arrives. This gives them a head start over spring-sown varieties and that head start means higher yields and an earlier harvest date. A further advantage is that if you wait until spring to sow your crops you will be at the mercy of the weather being kind to you to be able to get onto your land when conditions are right and that is unpredictable.
In years like this one, those farmers (which these days is most of them) may not have gained much advantage at all and may be looking at low yields. They will be faced with the choice of hoping for the best or investing more money and time in re-sowing some fields in the hope that that will increase yields.
Skylarks find winter wheat a sub-optimal habitat as the rapid growth of the crop (which benefits the farmer) makes the crop too thick for nesting on the skylark’s second and third nesting attempts through the season. Spring crops remain open for longer. That’s where skylark patches, for the provision of which farmers are paid if they sign up to them in agri-environment schemes, come in. Leaving tiny un-sown patches of land in your winter wheat fields has been shown to boost skylark numbers dramatically – they increased three-fold in a few years on the RSPB’s Hope Farm for example.
So this year there may be some farmers looking at their fields and thinking that they wished they were being paid for some of those bare patches of land that the skylarks like so much.
We’ll have to see how the spring, when it arrives, and the summer go before we know whether it’s been a good one for farmers or skylarks.
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Chiffchaffs have arrived in Sussex, but its almost sad to see them. Small parties of two, three or four, huddling together along the lee of woods or banks and limping slowly northward. And not a wisp of song have i heard yet.
One or two sand martin in this area but you do have to wonder what they are finding to feed on. Interestingly we still have at least 3 pairs of smew, presumably unable to face that bitter easterly wind. Last year they had disappeared by the end of February.
I have noticed a few skylark patches in what is now a local NIA. I presume that as they have public money they will need to publicise results. I look forward to seeing the outcome.
Here in the north-east of Scotland the area of spring-sown crops outnumbers autumn-sown crops by a factor of 2:1, so we are fortunate to retain large areas of winter stubbles and plenty of their associated birds, including skylarks. However, in this part of the world I actually think the winter crops provide some useful habitat diversity and are possibly actually beneficial for skylarks. Most farms have a mixture of spring and autumn sown crops in close proximity and in a ‘normal’ year, spring barley does not really provide much cover until late April or early May and you tend to find most skylarks holding territories over winter barley, wheat or rape in the early part of the breeding season. Later in the season they seem to switch to spring barley for second broods, getting the best of both worlds.
In 2010 (which was a late spring after the second coldest winter on record) I remember surveying an arable farm in Banffshire that consisted of about 200 hectares of spring barley and nothing else. By mid-May the fields were still bare and there were virtually no birds holding territory, except around the edges, where skylarks and corn buntings were clustered around winter cereals and grassland on neighbouring farms. Of course traditionally, spring cereals would have been grown in rotation with grass to provide a mix of habitats (and that still happens here, albeit in a more intensive way than in the past), but on all-arable farms, I think that wall-to-wall spring cropping is probably almost as bad as wall-to-wall autumn cropping.
At the moment, the whole of north-east Scotland is still covered with snow at a time when spring barley should be being sown and there is little sign of a thaw in the next week or more, so I suspect that there will be a lot of bare fields this May too.
I doubt very much that spring cereals were grown to provide a mix of habitats
On a recent visit to the Midlands, I was surprised and pleased to see hundreds of stubble fields in Warwickshire and Northants. I have no idea what percentage of these were intended and what proportion simply could not be sown in the autumn.
A farmer I know was unable to get on to his field to plough it ( or harvest his potato field) because of the record wet conditions. This ( unplanned) stubble field has attracted finches, buntings, skylarks and a barn owl. The farmer is considering spring sowing in future
8 wheatears on the beach near Weston super Mare this morning and a Chiffchaff in my garden but ( unsurprisingly) not singing yet.
8
Waterlogging everywhere – including thin soils over chalk! – held up harvest 2012 and winter drilling. Even winter wheat sown in December is barely showing in parts of Cambridgshire. A couple of weeks ago the agri-press was muttering about a shortage of seed of spring varieties – well you can’t just chop and change like that without a couple of years’ notice…
What’s more – spring wheats are relatively low yielding so we can expect a wheat shortage and higher bread prices and what with the cold wet soils that will apply to potatoes too unless the Pembroke and Cornish crops – some were already in the ground by first week of March – come up trumps and they are allowed to bulk up.
So wrap up warm, saw up your furniture – especially that hideous G-plan – and burn it, cancel all pointless travel to gawp at things, and save up so you can afford to eat later in the year.
Just back from my first ever trip to Portland Bill, intended as a nice spring weekend away to watch the migrants coming in! There were quite a few, mostly meadow pipits, but also chiffchaffs, wheatear a few black redstart and a few swallows and martins. Really rather depressing seeing the warblers hugging the ground and cover, looking for food and I found myself wondering what on earth the swallows and martins were feeding on. it was bitterly cold, not an insect to be seen.
Fields still grey everywhere, it seems. Blackthorn flower buds still tight. Feels like late january, except for the stronger light. The combination of longer days but bitterly cold weather seems to mess with the mind – it’s not what we are used to.
It remains to be seen if and when spring finally arrives and what it brings. Lack of sunshine, lack of warmth, a lot of rain…..what will this to over a summer to crops and wildlife?
Is the weather finally starting to get the better of us? How bad does it have to get before government really starts to help us all do something to slow the rater of climate change, rather than simply encourage us to burn more carbon by building more new houses and hoping people have enough money to buy “stuff”?
If we are lucky enough to have a good, warm sunny summer, the late spring, the winter (and last summer floods) will all be forgotten about. If our weather keeps us guessing for another year or two and gives us a couple of years of failed crops, floods, sheep buried in snow, etc, etc, will that be enough to move the government to action? What does it take?
Lets hope the skylarks get lucky this year and lets hope most of the migrants can resist the temptation to cross the channel for a while yet, at least until they have some slightly warmer weather to come to, and lets hope people start to realise this whole climate change thing isn’t just someone else’s problem!
Sian – what a lovely comment – thank you.
Trevor some of the stuble fields are deliberate, one that springs to mind and has always been winter stuble and is vast is the one that belongs to the Compton estate and lays on the side of the very narrow road that links Easton Maudit with Castle Asbhy and goes past the shooting/cley pigeon range, plenty of Skylarks, Starlings and the odd one or two Little Owls too and when spring arrives great for Swallows/Chiffchaff/Lesser Whitehtroats/Common Whitethroats/passing Wheatears and even a Ring Ouzel or two.
I did note when in Jersey recently a farmer who in one of his field was asking ramblers to stay out during the breeding season because of Skylarks which brought a smile to my face but given how well the Skylark hides it’s nest I wonder how many nests are destroyed (bu accident of course) by ramblers etc? And what is being done to address this side of the issue? I’ve obviously picked up on the purley anectdotal evidence of the declinee of pipits and larks after the right to roam act was introducded but wondder if there is any hard/actual evidence of this?
You have to wonder also of any nesting attempts by, for instance, blackbirds – there must have to be some pretty hard core incubating going on to keep clutches alive – as we’re into late March presumably there could even be young hatched? Brrrrr… I notice our local (to work) blackbird hasn’t been singing much, though a mistle thrush did put on a brave little vocal performance a little earlier.
I’m catching up with the blog after a week long very un spring like bout of ‘flu, just to say thanks for publicising the Country Life interview with the Sec of State – what a depressingly stupid man Owen “Sir Les” Paterson is. Can we get him in front of Eddie Mair next Sunday morning please?
I thought it was traditional that spring weather normally waited until after Easter to put in an appearance. I wonder what the weather recorders have to say about this year compared to the last twenty. In this area, most cerials were planted in spring. How much time is gained in Autumn sowing? I had the resident blackbird and wood pigeon collecting nest material about two weeks ago. I don,t know if they are sitting or have postponed egg laying for now.
Easter being a moveable feast, this is easily fixed by fixing it. How about 1st of May, then we could combine it with all the other holidays at that time and have a worthwhile break, with a reasonable chance of temperatures above 6 or 7 (C). It would do the economy good, by closing the banks for a longer period and decreasing their opportunities for robbing us.
Autumn vs spring: In typical weather, Autumn sowing drills seed into a warm, dry seedbed, with a reasonable expectation that there will rains later. Spring sowing conditions are transitioning from cold and wet to warmer and drier. From the point of view of risk managing soils and crops to avoid soil damage and timely crop establishment, autumn drilling wins hands down.
Snowing again. Mrs C gone to hairdressers near Stockbridge – will I ever see her again? I hope she manages to get back this month, to see the Nuthatch on my fatballs
Hello Filbert, we don,t know what the banks are doing behind closed doors. That,s when they think of more ideas to rob the public! Have they realised yet that they depend on the public putting money in? It was always the custom around here to sow cerials in spring but perhaps the springs used to be warmer and more reliable.