GWCT News Blog

Providing seed for birds will always benefit a select number bird species largely because many birds, such as wrens, rely on insects for food. 

Last week I caught up with Welsh Governments James Owen Deputy Director, Land Management Reform Division who’s in charge of directing the new Sustainable Farming Scheme. 

Jake Fiennes is the director of conservation at the Holkham Estate, which covers 25,000 acres in north Norfolk. The estate includes a nature reserve, which is visited by almost a million people a year, and a farming business that grows potatoes, sugar beet and barley. James Swyer met with him to find out more.

GWCT Head of Education Mike Swan looks at what's involved when creating a new pheasant shoot from scratch.

Today we sent this letter to Màiri McAllan MSP, newly appointed to the Scottish Government as Minister for Environment, Biodiversity & Land Reform.

Over the last few months, we have been eagerly watching the activity of the nesting pair of barn owls on Owl Box LIVE. Earlier in the season we captured evidence that the pair were breeding and subsequently the female laid four eggs.

Habitat loss for over 80 years, often incentivised by Government to increase food production, will not be reversed overnight but there is cause for hope. 

The drive to plant trees to sequester carbon raises the potential conflict between carbon and biodiversity and at present it seems that carbon trumps biodiversity.

The breeding season is moving along swiftly, and the pair of breeding barn owls within one of our Owl Box Initiative project nest boxes can frequently be seen continuing to cement their bond with one another. Courtship behaviour is an important part of bonding in breeding barn owl pairs and begins over winter and throughout the nesting season.

Defra have published their long awaited General Licence for gamebird releasing on European Protected Sites. Releasing pheasants and red-legged partridges in the protected sites and within a 500m buffer around them will be licensed for an interim period of four years whilst Defra and NE undertake work to assess impacts of gamebird management on individual sites.