Presenter Dougie Vipond made a visit to the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s demonstration farm in Aberdeenshire to see how their landscape-scale approach to farming and conservation is helping wader species such as lapwing, oystercatcher and curlew thrive.
Featured in the latest episode of Landward on BBC Scotland, broadcast on 13 June, Dougie was show around the farm by the GWCT’s researcher Max Wright.
Auchnerran is an upland hill farm which aims to show how hill edge, marginal farmland can be managed to benefit both game and wildlife. Max explained to Dougie how they monitor the wader nests on the farm and explained what conservation measures they use to try to help breeding pairs successfully fledge their chicks.
Commenting on the filming, Max said: “It was great the waders were behaving and showed up for the cameras! The larger one seen in the clip was from a brood of three I have since colour ringed with Andy Hoodless (GWCT’s Head of Research), and all three of them have now fledged too, which is really nice to know. So, with any luck we’ll be able to record them returning to the farm to breed themselves in the future!
“A lot of people are looking for a silver bullet for wader conservation. There isn’t one. It takes landscape-scale change, and it takes a lot of people working together to try to achieve a positive outcome.
“They’re such an amazing part of our heritage and culture, and such a valuable part of the countryside. I think it’s really important that we maintain that and stay true to that, and hold on to them.”