Blogs

Jim Egan previews a series of events being delivered by the Campaign for the Farmed Environment that  will focus on pollinators and their benefits to farm businesses.

This year’s smolt run has finally finished. After seven weeks of around-the-clock work, we are exhausted but pleased with the results. We estimated a total of 9,539 smolts passing our base at East Stoke in Dorset, which is slightly up on the five-year average (9,033), but down on the ten-year average (10,220).

This week, insects are in the spotlight as we celebrate National Insect Week. Grey partridge chicks may not be celebrating, though. Their survival depends on chick-food insect availability around ground level and we fear that our late, wet spring means that insect numbers are low for many areas of the country.

Rasmus Lauridsen reports on the return of the first salmon to have been tagged using our new PIT detection equipment.

Dr. Niamh McHugh introduces our new project looking at barn swallow foraging on arable land in relation to agri-environment scheme habitat options.

Chris Heward discusses his PhD thesis which concerns the declining British woodcock population.

Chris Heward discusses possible reasons for the short movement made by Monkey IV midway through the breeding season.

The significant implications of the EU referendum for sovereignty, free trade and the movement of people are all being loudly debated. Farming and environmental issues have been less prominent, but the outcome of this referendum will have real implications for them too.

This year for the first time there will be a number of English game fairs rather than one, so there has been a certain anticipation surrounding the first – the Field & Country Fair held at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire on 10-12 June. I’m delighted that in terms of new member recruitment and profile raising for the GWCT, the show was a great success.

Auchnerran is a hive of activity right now. For a start, we have more people working here than we’ve had before as we pull together more information about our wader and rabbit populations. And by all accounts the sheep flock, under Allan’s shepherding skills, is doing well.