We have a continued commitment to conservation on our land, ensuring that we are not only farming to feed people and livestock, but also farming in ways which enable our wildlife to thrive. We are part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and we are proud to have a wealth of wildlife on our land and work hard to encourage and protect it.
Our fields contain wildflower and native grass headlands around the edges that support a broad range of invertebrates, from bees and butterflies to grasshoppers, spiders and beetles. In turn, birds make use of them for foraging and nesting, along with mice too. Across our Estate, we are proud to have cultivated approximately 15% of our land towards the stewardship scheme, with wildflower mixes, winter bird seed and leguminous fallow.
Over the last 3 years we have built a number of wildlife corridors by planting over 3.5km worth of new hedges, as well as ensuring that hedges are maintained rotationally in order to keep habitat disturbance to a minimum. These corridors connect areas of the Estate to allow wildlife to better move throughout the Estate.
We are proud to have a wide variety of wildlife on the Estate. This includes the following birds, which are red-listed due to their high conservation priority, according to the latest Birds of Conservation Concern report:
We are delighted to also have three types of owl residing on the Estate; the Barn Owl, the Little Owl and the Tawny Owl.
To help support our birdlife to thrive, each year we put down approximately 5 tonnes of wild bird seed food in the ‘hungry gap’, which runs from December to April, to help in the survival of these and other birds on our Estate. We also take part in the annual Big Farmland Bird Count which works to record the effect of conservation efforts being initiated by farmers and landowners across the country.
In addition to our birdlife we also see:
We would like to thank Mr Tony Betts for documenting our wildlife with his fantastic photography.