Up, up and away - Grey partridges soar at Royston

New figures just released by The Game Conservancy Trust show that grey partridges, one of Britain's most threatened birds, have increased eleven-fold on the Trust's demonstration study site at Royston in Hertfordshire over the past five years.

The Game Conservancy Trust set up this experimental project on farmland near Royston, Hertfordshire in 2001 with the specific aim of demonstrating the best management techniques for restoring this iconic bird. This autumn the count figures reveal that grey partridges have responded positively to this management and have increased from 7.6 birds per 100 hectares in 2001, just before the project started, to an impressive 87.8 birds per 100 hectares in autumn 2006. This equates to an impressive total of 876 birds on the 1,000 hectare demonstration site.

This is a huge boost for the Trust's national campaign to 'save the grey'. As lead partner for the Government's UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) for the grey partridge, the Trust has been given a target of ensuring the grey partridge population is above 150,000 nationally by 2010.

Dr Nick Sotherton, Director of Research with the Trust said, "This is a fantastic outcome and we are delighted that the partridge population has responded so well to our management regime. These latest figures also demonstrate the potential for restoring the grey partridge population on a national basis and we hope that many more farmers and landowners across the country will feel inspired to get involved in grey partridge recovery."

The Trust's grey partridge recovery project is a national programme that relies on input from local landowners and farmers. All counties have their individual BAP targets for grey partridges and in areas where farmers and landowners are following the Trust's research recommendations and advice, recent counts suggest that grey partridge numbers are slowly responding to sympathetic management, such as protection from predators, creating good brood-rearing and nesting habitat and supplementary feeding.

The Game Conservancy Trust's national Partridge Count Scheme is open to anyone with grey partridges on their land. Participants on the scheme are invited to join a regional grey partridge recovery group or attend locally arranged grey partridge management days, which are generously sponsored by Saffery Champness. Regional groups, which meet twice a year, are now running in Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, South East Anglia, Durham, the Cotswolds, East Lothian, Northumberland, Wessex, West Midlands, Sussex and Kent