Hedgerow management for the conservation of partridges Perdix perdix and Alectoris rufa.

Abstract

Hedgerows and other field boundaries are used, almost exclusively, as nesting habitat by the grey and red-legged partridge in Britain. This paper summarises the evidence for the importance of hedgerow vegetation characteristics to partridges and suggests the most suitable methods of hedgerow management for partridge conservation.

Where both the total amount of field boundary and the amount of residual ground vegetation (in the form of dead grass, nettle, bramble and leaf litter) are high, so are partridge populations. It is shown that the most suitable nesting habitat exists in hedges trimmed every other year, a management practice carried out on only 12% of the hedgerows surveyed in this study.