Cotswold Honeydale Farm: Birds

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Richard Broughton was at Honeydale this weekend conducting a bird survey, with very pleasing results - two new species were recorded at the farm: A pair of coots have arrived and are building a nest on the pond and a Sedge Warbler was seen singing next to the pond. This is further proof that the creation of the wetland area is really paying off; the number of breeding species has increased by around 15% in the few years it’s been there. Canada Geese are sitting on eggs on the small island, and there are at least two (maybe three) pairs of Reed Buntings nesting around the pond area. Moorhens are still present (Richard heard one calling from the sedges) and Mallard feathers are on the water, (and have bred in previous years). None of those species were present before, and their arrival is purely down to the wetland creation.

Elsewhere, there's a pair of Kestrels nesting in a broken Ash tree at the bottom of the sheep field (opposite corner from the pond). Also a pair of Red Kites are very much at home (probably non-breeding first-years - they don't generally breed until 2 yrs old), 4 Buzzards, 2 Yellow Wagtails and at least three Lesser Whitethroats (the highest total so far). Two Willow Warblers were also recorded - only the second sighting - although they were silent and probably passing through on migration.

When our bird expert, Dr Richard K Broughton, came to Honeydale just before Christmas, he noted that the main birdfood/bumblebird plots had been almost exhausted, so the 250 Linnets from the previous month were down to about 25 on the whole farm, most of which were feeding on the mustard, which was almost the only seed still available. The small plot containing some Phacelia was attracting a flock of Goldfinches.

One of the rape/brassica strips had ripened and already been cleaned out and skylarks were still loving the sainfoin stubbles in the north field, with a dozen counted there. But many birds were already looking elsewhere for food, and the hanging feeders were quite busy with Chaffinches and Reed Buntings and a handful of Yellowhammers.

Since the new year, the sown plots have been exhausted and our bird enthusiast, Elliot, has begun the second year of the supplementary winter feeding experiment. We are supplementary feeding with 10kg of seed every day and the birds have stopped visiting the sown seed plots and are now heading directly to the supplementary feeding areas, where food is broadcast on the ground and left in hanging feeders/hoppers.

The aim of the supplementary winter bird feeding project is compare the effectiveness of growing wild bird plant mixtures, compared to regularly distributing extra supplementary bird food. It’s too early to draw conclusions until we have at least three years of results, but we are noting increased numbers of Chaffinches and Linnets and have sighted two barn owls, though Yellowhammer numbers are down for some reason. Richard has been back this week and spotted a visiting green sandpiper on the natural flood management ponds. They came last year too, so it’s great to seem them returning.

Since we’ve been purposefully catering to farmland birds, the tally of species noted on the farm has already risen significantly, from 44 to a 74, and we are hoping to see these numbers continue to increase.

As we head into Autumn, there’s been plenty going on at Honeydale Farm.

Mid-September, we drilled mustard into the control plots of spring barley as a cover crop. This is a Cover crop that’s been used across Honeydale for many years and we’re keeping the trial plots so that we can compare results with the eight year crop rotation we’ve implemented. The mustard germinated by 22nd September, will die off over the winter and the residual will be ploughed up in March.

The year seven crop of our eight year rotation is spring planted wild bird seed mixes which are already being put to good use, providing a supply of food during the hungry gap. We will be repeating the experiment we did last year, comparing the benefits of these sown bird plots with supplementary feeding.

We’ve also been trailing a mixture of game cover and wild bird crops, looking at combining long lasting cover over the winter with the addition of sources of food for farmland birds. The mixtures, some of which includes sunflowers, millet and mustard for food and sorghum and brassicas for cover, were sown in June and are looking good, so we may have new mixes to purchase through Cotswold Seeds before too long.

We’ve sowed and rolled a pathway seed mix around the area we are establishing as a novel crop trials area. The seed mix includes meadow grass, ryegrass, fescues, bentgrass and wild white clover and was drilled in three different directions in order to create a thick and dense covering that’s robust enough to cope with being trodden on.

On the 24th September we combined the sainfoin. It was cut for hay in spring, allowed to regrow and set seed and after combining it’s now being cleaned in the Cotswold Seeds warehouse. It’s a special variety seedstock for multiplication.

A couple of days later, we welcomed 35 PhD students from Oxford University to Honeydale. This varied group of post graduates included specialists in water and insects and they were all interested in studying the diverse farm as an ecosystem. In the final days of September the water in the bottom scrape was successfully holding the water and providing a habit for many aquatic species.

Our herbal ley was also sown at the end of June, with a cover crop of Buckwheat to act as a nurse to help it establish, and the sheep have enjoyed grazing it over the summer. In the first week of October we topped it to remove the stalky and fibrous stems in preparation winter.

The last few weeks have been very busy ones at Honeydale. Not only have we been haymaking and harvesting but we’ve also been progressing with plans for the development of Honeydale as a Centre for Food and Farming Diversity.

Sainfoin

We’re letting our field of sainfoin go to seed with a plan to harvest it for retail. The seeds are beginning to ripen, albeit unevenly, but we are hoping it will be ready to direct combine at the end of September. It’s a special landrace selection which offers fantastic diversity, selected over many generations. Unlike bred strains with are chosen for their stability, this variety of sainfoin has been given the epigenetic freedom to adapt to its local environment.

It will be very satisfying to see the seeds harvested at Honeydale for sale through Cotswold Seeds next year.

Buckwheat

We undersowed herbal ley to buckwheat to act as a nurse crop to protect the herbal ley from hot weather while it establishes, especially important on our thin, free draining soils. It was sown seven weeks ago at 10 kilos an acre of buckwheat and as you can see from the below the herbal ley has taken wonderfully well. We’re not going to graze the sheep on it, because we’re not certain how they will take to the buckwheat, so we ran the topper over it this week to allow the light to get to the herbal ley for regrowth. We’ve also left a trial strip of buckwheat so that we can observe what happens if we don’t top it.

Combining the Wheat

Like many farmers, there was no rest for Sam over the hot and sunny bank holiday weekend. He was busy combining the wheat. As part of our rotation it was late sown in May, undersown with trefoil and white clover for the sheep to graze in spring.

We achieved a yield of 1.4 tons an acre, which we’re very happy with, given that it was a zero input/no cost crop. The financial data is being professionally monitored by Farm Business Analyst James Turner from Strutt & Parker which will enable us to compare the new rotation with the control plots from the previous conventional, high cost/input system.

We were hoping to combine the oats too, but they weren’t quite ready.

Haymaking

Two permanent grass fields, fifteen acres each of ridge and furrow, have been cut for hay. It’s been baled and Sam has been tedding it for the past 4-5 days. Weather permitting, it might only need a couple more turns and then it will be ready to bale and feed to sheep and cattle over the winter.

Wildbird and sunflower seed mix

This was thin when it was sown in April because of the dry weather, but it’s looking a bit better now, and getting plenty of interest from our farmland birds already.

Dry-stonewalling

H and Kelvin from local dry stone walling and fencing company ‘Sticks & Stones’ have been carrying on with the building of the wall at the entrance of Honeydale and it’s progressing slowly but steadily. It’s highly skilled and painstaking work and we could of course have just erected a fence here. But limestone walls are so quintessentially Cotswold and there was a wall at the entrance of Honeydale which had fallen down, so we wanted to rebuild it reusing the old stone.

Development of Honeydale

We’ve been working closely with architects and West Oxfordshire District Council to progress the plans for the development of Honeydale. We’re currently at pre-application stage and Tim and Chris, our architects, are now drawing up visualisations, taking great care that replacement farm buildings will be perfectly in-keeping with the landscape of the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Exciting times.

The latest bird report from Honeydale is available to view and as you'll see, things are still on the up and up in terms of species diversity and overall numbers, although there are some blips with declines of a few key species (e.g. Yellowhammer). But overall the farm is gaining and holding onto more species than ever before - the species diversity has increased by an impressive 46% since the first year of survey (2014).

With spring rapidly springing, our bird expert Richard Broughton came to conduct a survey at Honeydale last week to check up on how the winter feeding programme is going and he counted a flock of 60 finches/buntings (mostly Yellowhammers and Chaffinches) on the feeding area. Interestingly, as in last month’s survey, the birds were almost exclusively concentrated here, proving the importance of our programme of broadcasting bird feed throughout the hungry gap. It’s clearly continuing to support large numbers of birds right up to the end of winter.

On the other hand, the sown (unfed) plots are now totally barren, so we are planning to continue the winter bird feeding programme well into May, when there should be be enough new growth on the sown plots to provide alternative sources of food.

Richard also sighted a Sparrowhawk, Raven, Kite and noisy Kestrel in the area, which may have their beady eyes on the owl box or the old crow nest in the tall ash tree and we’re delighted to welcome Chiffchaffs, the first of the summer migrants to arrive on the farm.

The bird species count at Honeydale is rising. Elliot is still supplementary feeding with 10kg of seed every day, and this week he spotted a woodcock, a native farmland bird which likes wet and semi-wooded land, and has never been seen at the farm before. It’s presence takes the tally of bird species at Honeydale up to a pleasing 73.

Song Thrush

Other native farmland birds currently residing at Honeydale include a small flock of meadow pipits in the wildflower meadow. The resident stonechat which has made a home at the top of the farm has now been joined by three pairs which can regularly be spotted by the lake. And heard too. Their distinctive call, does indeed sound like two stones knocking together and ‘chattering’. The large numbers of song thrushes are more melodious. We’re not sure if these are residents or migrants but other migrants are now definitely on the move. We had several hundred fieldfares overwintering at Honeydale but numbers of these have now dwindled as they head back to Scandinavia. There are lots of bullfinches, bold little birds which cheekily came too close for Elliot to photograph! (He only had a zoom lens with him.) Yellowhammers, goldfinches and chaffinches are regularly feeding on the plots and Blue tits, Great Tits, Robins and Blackbirds are feasting on the tree feeders on a daily basis.

Meadow Pipit

Stonechat

The weather has certainly turned colder and Honeydale's bird enthusiast, Elliot, has been continuing with the supplementary winter bird feeding at a rate of 10kg a day, which seems to be very welcome amongst our feathered visitors.

Elliot spent an hour watching the plots on Tuesday but didn’t observe any flocks feeding directly on the broadcast seed, although he did witness a solitary Roe deer which seemed very grateful for the fresh feed and feasted on it for a good half an hour until it was disturbed and scuttled off! Flocks of yellowhammer and finches were descending on the plot but they were feeding on the existing seed mix that we had planted and not on the broadcast seed.

However, the situation had changed dramatically by the weekend, as the temperature dropped, when our bird expert, Dr Richard K Broughton, Ecologist & GIS Specialist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, came to conduct his regular monthly survey. He sighted around 150 finches and bunting, and pleasingly one hundred and thirty of those were concentrated at the feeder/feeding strip. There were 60 yellowhammer, 50 chaffinch, 15 goldfinch, 5 linnet counted here. By contrast, the other sown birdfood/bumblebird plots were virtually empty, and all of the standing seed is now exhausted. So it’s fairly evident that now all the standing seed has been eaten, the birds have switched to the feeding area. This is very interesting, since the purpose of the supplementary winter bird feeding project is to determine the best way to provide food to support farmland birds during the winter hungry gap. We’re comparing the effectiveness of growing wild bird plant mixtures, compared to regularly distributing extra supplementary bird food.

So far it seems that it is beneficial to birds to distribute supplementary bird food when all the standing seeds have gone, but the study is continuing until late spring so we will keep watching and waiting to see what happens.

Elsewhere, Richard reported sighting a lot of thrushes on the fields (hundreds of mostly redwings, but also quite a few song thrushes and some fieldfares), and a flock of about 25 skylark. Interestingly some of the birds are being quite selective over which type of plots/strips they're using (e.g. skylarks are favouring the cereal stubble and song thrushes are showing a preference for sainfoin).

Mid-winter and with a cold spell forecast, Elliot is about to start daily feeding at a rate of 10kg per day from next week, to make sure the farm birds at Honeydale have plenty of food to see them through.

Elliot has noted that finches (Gold, Chaf and Green), Wood Pigeons, Blackbirds and Dunnocks have been using the patch for forage and the usual suspects (Tits, House Sparrows, Robins, Yellowhammers) are also visiting the feeders hung in the trees. He’s also spotted two pairs of Bullfinches and two pairs of Siskins in the hedgerow between the bees and the orchard.

Due to the time that Elliot feeds them - 9am when the seed left the previous day has all but been consumed - it’s proving difficult to spot more diverse species so Elliot’s plan is to create a viewing vista around the feeding area from which he can observe the species feeding at dusk.

In partnership with other Oxfordshire farms, we’re conducting an experiment over the next few months to determine the best way to provide food to support farmland birds during the winter hungry gap. We’re comparing the effectiveness of growing wild bird plant mixtures, compared to regularly distributing extra supplementary bird food. Both of these feeding options are available as farmland stewardship options so we want to find out which has a more positive effect on farmland bird numbers.

The farmland stewardship options are part of the UK Government’s commitment to reversing the long-term decline in the number of farmland birds. The UK Farmland Bird Indicator is made up of 19 species that are dependent on farmland, and not able to thrive in other habitats. The turtle dove, grey partridge, corn bunting and tree sparrow have declined by over 80 per cent and the overall average change for the 19 species is a 48 per cent decline since 1970.

The aim of supplementary feeding is to provide a regular, constant source of food as a lifeline for farmland birds, all the way from early winter to mid spring.

At Honeydale the standard wild bird plant mixtures of seed bearing species like quinoa, fodder radish, cereals and mustard will be used as a control, to show the numbers of farmland bird species that use it as a food resource. We’ll also be looking at how long these plants provide seed into the winter months. Ideally, this resource would provide seed from December to March, however in reality they are often exhausted and depleted by mid winter.

Supplementary bird feeding is a newer idea, whereby farmers distribute bird seed regularly, in specific areas which are often within the blocks of wild bird plant mixtures.

We will monitor both the control plots and the supplementary feeding area to count the numbers of birds and diversity of bird species using the resource.

The supplementary feed will be distributed every 2-3 days to begin with and by late December it will be provided every day.

Richard Broughton of CEH conducts regular bird surveys at Honeydale and will be monitoring the effects of the project, while the day to day feeding programme will be handled by Cotswold Seeds’ Warehouse Manager Elliot May. Elliot has had a keen interest in birds for many years, so he jumped at the chance to take on the supplementary feeding project at Honeydale! Having a great eye for identifying bird species both feeding and on the wing, he is the ideal candidate.

This week Elliot hung up two large seed feeders in the blackthorn hedge, which will provide songbirds with protection from predators such as sparrowhawks. The feeders were filled with a Hungry Gap Mix from Well Fed Birds containing wheat, barley, black sunflowers, millet, red millet, canary seed and linseed. A ton of this seed has been purchased, to last for 100 days. Ground-feeding birds such as linnets, blackbirds and fieldfares are also being catered for. Ten kg of the seed was also hand-distributed over a strip of the Summer Quick Fix rapid cover mixture, an area of which was flattened as a feeding area several weeks ago.

Elliot observed blue tits, great tits and a solitary yellow hammer while he was setting up the feeders, but we hope to see more birds on the farm once they have had time to realise there is a regular food supply here. Watch this space!

There’s a nip of autumn in the air and British Summertime ends soon. But the birds at Honeydale are well catered for when winter sets in. We’ve planted two plots with winter bird food cover; a one year annual mix and two year autumn sown bumble bee mix which has another cycle to go. The fodder radish did particularly well and the mixes should provide plenty of food over the leaner months.

We’re delighted to be able to provide a very positive news update on our barn owls. Two chicks in the Honeydale Farm nest box have now been ringed by Pat and Albert of the barn owl team of the Wychwood Project. They’re quite different sizes, with one much larger and therefore probably older than the other, but both are doing well. Evidence suggests that there were originally three chicks but unfortunately one has been lost - rather poignantly.

The exciting news about the two surviving chicks is tinged with sadness because we’ve lost the third member of the barn owl team, Ian Anderson, who died last month. Ian was so enthusiastic about this project and incredibly helpful, and the success of our owl breeding venture is a testament to him, Pat and Albert.

Thrilling news from the latest Honeydale Farm bird survey. There are Barn Owls chicks in the nestbox. Our birdman, Richard Brougton from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, observed that both parents are bringing in food and chicks can be heard hissing in the box (so must be fairly big already). There's hatched eggshell underneath the nestbox.

Honeydale Farm is proving to be a great hunting ground for Barn Owls. Two of the grass fields have recently been mown, which has given the owls a temporary glut of prey (as the voles are exposed) and one of the owl parents is also regularly hunting in the long grass in the orchard and catching a lot of prey (3 voles in half an hour!). Leaving this grass long until the autumn will give the owls a stable hunting ground for the duration of rearing the chicks and we’ll also be leaving wide margins of long grass after mowing in order to maintain a good supply of voles.

There are also huge numbers of butterflies on the farm at the moment, especially Meadow Browns. Richard says he doesn’t think he’s ever seen so many. The uncut strip of herbal ley in one of the arable fields is teeming with butterflies. Richard also saw a Marbled White, which might be a new species here. We’ll be looking into conducting a butterfly survey to compare with the baseline figures gathered when we first took over the farm.

Here are the results for the mightily impressive Winter 2015/16 Honeydale Farm Bird Survey Report. Have a read through!

* Several of the sown plots were particularly attractive for seed-eating birds, producing a large seed crop. These included the sown birdfood plots (HF12 or similar), including quinoa, fodder radish and mustard

* Female Stonechat, present on October 31st, the first record for the farm.

* Greenfinches and a Goldfinch on the deer fence, flushed from the sown area of wildflowers within and alongside of the fence, where they fed on abundant seedheads of e.g. Field Poppy.

* A single Red Kite was recorded on most visits, having previously been an irregular species.

* The Raven, which was recorded on most visits.

* Common Buzzard hunting on the farm, a regular sight on each visit.

* Goldfinch feeding on yarrow

*Song Thrush

* Field Fare

* Pair of Canada Geese flying low over the farm, 16th Feb 2016.

Table. Highest count of wintering birds recorded on Honeydale Farm during the previous winter survey (Feb 2015, labelled 2015 in the column heading), compared with the present survey in Oct 2015-Feb 2016 (labelled 2016), with the percentage difference between maximum counts. Species in orange are of conservation concern, being Amber-listed species (25-50% national population decline since 1969), and those in red being Red-listed (population decline greater than 50%). Linnet, Skylark and Yellowhammer, in bold, were Red-listed species with a particularly good population at Honeydale Farm during winter, representing the most important species on the farm. Note: Lapwing, Golden Plover, Cormorant, Canada Goose and Lesser Black-backed Gull were only recorded flying over the site.

New Bird Species at Honeydale

Hungry Birds

Busy September at Honeydale

The End Of Summer

Sainfoin

Buckwheat

Combining the Wheat

Haymaking

Wildbird and sunflower seed mix

Dry-stonewalling

Development of Honeydale

Honeydale Bird Report 2017

Keep Feeding The Birds

Bird Numbers Soaring

Winter Snack Bar for Birds Open at Honeydale

Hungry Birds

Supplementary Farmland Bird Feeding Project

Feed The Birds

Barn Owl Chicks

Barn Owl Chicks at Honeydale

Honeydale Farm Bird Report

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