COUNT AIMS TO TRACK STATUS OF BRITAIN'S DWINDLING GREY PARTRIDGE POPULATION

                                                            

Grey partridge - seeking ways to stem its decline

FARMERS, landowners and gamekeepers are being urged to get involved in a project aimed a helping to conserve grey partridges.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has run its count of the species since 1933 to collect information on abundance and breeding success.

 Over the years, numbers have been affected by wet summers, low chick survival and problems with low winter survival rates.

This is something the bird is adapted to, but their chick survival rates can be helped by having chick-food producing habitat and management in place to minimise losses.

GWCT scientist Neville Kingdon, who collates the results each year, says every bird which gets recorded is vital, as our autumn count gets under way.

“To get a national recovery, we need a national response.

“It’s the time of the year when crops have been  cut and we can see birds, so it’s the perfect time to go out and take part.

“We’re not just interested in big numbers, every single sighting  matters -counting t can often be enjoyed as an activity with the family.”

Factsheets on habitat creation, management and predation control are available for download from the GWCT’s  web pages at  https://www.gwct.org.uk/advisory/guides/. 

Measures taken to improve conditions for grey partridges could also help a range of other species of farmland bird.

Head of education at GWCT, Mike Swan, who recently took part in a count in Cornwall, said: “It was a joy to see a well-grown covey with six young; probably the first covey to be produced in the wild in Cornwall for over a decade. 

“There is a long way to go before we can say that there is a self-sustaining population back in Cornwall, but this was a very encouraging result for the first year.”