Countryside staff and their students not only get to carry out interesting practical work, but also undertake innovative research activity to inform the industry too. A recent and ongoing example of this is the project that has been set up to see if gamebird feeding hoppers provide winter food for non-target wildlife species on farms and shoots in the East Midlands. This was co-ordinated by staff member James Littlemore and student Sean Willmer.
Since the mid-1970’s, agricultural intensification and changes in land management practices have been linked with declines in biodiversity amongst key faunal groups, including farmland songbirds. With 7.3 million hectares of land currently managed by gamekeepers in the United Kingdom, there is a requirement to understand the indirect effects of game management practices on the conservation of non-target species. From January to May 2012, gamebird feeding hoppers were monitored at two small sized mixed farms participating in Environmental Stewardship in the East Midlands using passive camera traps. A total of 3428 video sequences were captured from January to May 2012, which showed that hoppers were used by a total of 27 different species. Surprisingly, pheasants and partridge made up only 12.2 % of total visits to hoppers; 28.0% were from songbirds including five UK Biodiversity Action Plan species and 38.2% were game pest species. The most abundant species recorded overall was yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella – with 654 observations. Locating the hoppers in hedgerow or woodland habitats did not influence species diversity or number, but species number and diversity was significantly higher during the day than at night across the survey period. The type of hopper spout also affected frequency of use, with a significant preference for the ‘tray’ feeding head. The findings show that feeding hoppers are well used during the winter period by a range of songbird species, which may positively affect their survivorship at a time when natural food resources are scarce.
The initial results were presented at the British Ecological Societies (BES) Winter Meeting at The University of Birmingham in December (link to conference proceedings here : http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/documents/meetings/2012_AM_abstracts.pdf). The results have also been written up as a scientific paper to be published in volume 10 of the online journal Conservation Evidence (http://www.conservationevidence.com). This story was also featured in Keeping the Balance, the journal of the National Gamekeepers Association. Another countryside management student, Dan Small, is currently looking at what happens on larger shooting estates that undertake more pro-active predator control, so check back here in the future to see what he finds.
You can also find a link to some of the fascinating camera trap footage that was obtained– look out for the hopper rocking badger!
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