This winter, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (formerly The Game Conservancy Trust) has awarded regional grey partridge trophies across the country in a bid to get more farmers and landowners involved in saving the wild grey partridge, one of our most threatened farmland birds.
The latest partridge conservation award was in the south-east, covering the counties of Surrey, Sussex and Kent. At the recent meeting of the Trust's south-eastern partridge recovery group this prestigious trophy was presented to Stuart Batchelor of Velcourt, by Tom French, Rural Director of Humberts, sponsors of this important regional conservation award. Tom French said, "Humberts is delighted to be involved in this award. Our rural teams nationwide are always keen to encourage efficient land management initiatives that combine good conservation practices, and I congratulate Velcourt for the excellent contribution they have made to grey patridge conservation in the south-east."
Stuart Batchelor was delighted to receive the trophy on behalf of farm management company Velcourt who have focused much of their conservation efforts in creating ideal habitat conditions for grey partridges on St Nicholas Court Farms, at St Nicholas, Wade in north-east Kent.
Dr Mike Swan, one of the Trust's judges in the south-east said, "Stuart and his colleagues have developed and maintained an impressive grey partridge restoration project on the farm. This has involved improving nesting cover in newly-developed grass-margins as well as providing important brood-rearing strips using the wild bird seed mix option of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. This insect-rich habitat is vitally important to the survival of young partridge chicks when they first hatch."
The judges were impressed by Velcourt's management philosophy, which clearly shows how practical conservation can be incorporated into an efficient commercially-run arable farming enterprise. Mike Swan explains, "This is an inspiring example of how modern farming practices can be combined with good conservation. We were particularly impressed by their enthusiasm to encourage grey partridges and how the comprehensive spring feeding policy and enhanced predator control has resulted in a trebling of the breeding pair count over the last three years. As an added benefit many other farmland birds and wildlife will reap the rewards of this wildlife friendly regime."
The wild grey partridge is one of our fastest declining farmland bird species. This once common bird has disappeared from large parts of the country and its population has dropped from over a million pairs in the 1950s to fewer than 75,000 pairs by 2000. In an effort to reverse this decline, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust as lead partner for the Government's Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) for grey partridge has set up regional groups across the country and has established the national grey Partridge Count Scheme – one of the largest farmer-led monitoring schemes in Europe.
Mike says, "The good news is that on a national basis nearly 1,000 individual areas returned grey partridge counts in the spring and 9,974 pairs of partridges were recorded over 282,000 hectares. In the south-eastern region, which offers some prime partridge territory in areas such as Sussex and the Kent Downs and Isle of Thanet, we have estimated a target of 7,000 grey partridge pairs. We are a long way off achieving this figure but are confident that the success of Velcourt in bringing back partridges will inspire more land managers to get involved in partridge conservation. There has been a huge amount of interest locally in restoring partridges, but more people on the ground need to get involved by joining the local south-east partridge group or by submitting counts to our Partridge Count Scheme, even if people only have one or two birds on their land."
The South-East Grey Partridge Group is kindly sponsored by Saffery Champness, chartered accountants, and Humberts and is supported under the England Rural Development Progamme by Defra.