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With the prospect of freezing winter conditions ahead, The Game Conservancy Trust is urging farmers and landowners to keep feeding game and farmland birds during late winter and early spring, as this is the time when many declining bird species struggle for survival due to a lack of food.



In a recent four-year study the Trust has identified that early spring feeding consistently led to higher densities of breeding pheasants and nearly twice as many young were produced when birds were regularly fed from a network of wheat-filled feed hoppers through to mid-May. As well as game, many other declining bird species such as yellowhammers and corn buntings are thought to benefit from this winter feeding regime.

Many of our once-familiar farmland birds, such as the tree sparrow, grey partridge and corn bunting have all undergone more than 80% declines in the last forty years and most conservationists suspect that the cause of these declines for these and other seed-eating birds, is the loss of suitable food over the winter-time, resulting in fewer birds surviving.

The Game Conservancy Trust and RSPB Scotland have embarked on an ambitious four-year study, which aims to explore just how important winter food supplies are to several species of farmland birds in Scotland. When completed, the project will improve the design of agri-environment scheme options for farmland birds, as well as showing the specific feeding regimes that are suited to a variety of farmland bird species.

Dr Dave Parish from The Game Conservancy Trust, who is running the project said, "This study is a massive undertaking, which will involve monitoring bird numbers on more than 32 farms across eastern Scotland. This summer we assessed the number of birds present on all our study sites before any changes are introduced and this has revealed a total of 80 species, ranging from the more common birds such as crows and pigeons, to some real scarcities like quail and crossbill."

Within the study area some of the farms involved will provide extra food over-winter, either as crops that are left for the birds to eat or as supplementary grain, or both, whilst the remainder will remain unchanged for comparison. Dave Parish explains, "After we have monitored bird numbers on all the farms over the coming years we aim to tell whether those with extra food have done better than those without and most importantly, whether they have maintained or increased their bird populations."

The fact that so many species have been seen on the study sites also means that the effect of the winter food can be investigated on a variety of birds all at once.

This is extremely important because the recent changes in farming subsidies now mean that farmers will be paid for sowing a variety of seed-bearing crops that are not harvested but left for the birds to eat. Dr Jeremy Wilson of RSPB Scotland said, "This study will show the importance of providing winter food and whether it is critical to maintain feeding through into the spring."

The project is funded by SEERAD - the Scottish Executive Environment Rural Affairs Department.

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