Hedge pic

February is almost done and let’s hope that March sees improvements in the weather plus looking forward to the lifting of restrictions throughout the country. We’ve had a busy month here on our farm, making bird foods, making sure the birds and animals were ok during the drop in temperatures and snow, then ending with George spreading fertilizer on the  crops that were sown in the Autumn, just before it started to rain and forgot to stop.

This week we have had Tommy the tree planter and his assistant here planting over 5km of new hedges, mainly in two places on the farm. We seem to be bucking the trend as everyone seems to be pulling trees out or grubbing hedges out.

Chris took me to see the newest hedge, it doesn’t look like much at the moment but it will make a massive difference to the wildlife, birdlife and the whole farm eco system when its bigger , and hey, you’ve got to start somewhere.  It’s a double hedge so is planted in two lines, three feet apart and the plants or quicks are planted a foot apart.  I’m also impressed that this won’t just be an ordinary hawthorn hedge, we’ve sourced hawthorn, blackthorn, buckthorn, hornbeam, dog rose and crab apple (well these are the ones I can remember) so when this grows it should be a total wildlife haven and although these will grow quicker than the trees we planted 3 years ago, it will still be a while before the birds will be nesting in there. As well as planting the hedges, we’re also planning that next year Tommy returns and in fills all of the hedge gaps in our existing hedges all around the farm so that eventually we have hedges that are regenerating and supporting the conservation of the whole farm.

I know that lots of you completed the Big Garden Birdwatch and thought that you would be most interested that Chris completed the Big Farmland Bird Count which is run through the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and supported by the National Farmers Union. This very important initiative records the effect on birdlife of any conservation schemes farmers have initiated on the land that they farm such as bird feeding, cover crops and growing wild bird seed crops. As we do all of these things its important that we record how this affects the birdlife here on our farm and we have seen a massive headcount increase over the years that we have supported the birdlife through the conservation measures we have put in place. The species we have seen the biggest increase in were chaffinches and yellowhammers, on the day that the count was done.  If anyone is interested in this Big Farmland Bird Count, I’ll post a link at the end of this blog.

Here’s the link

https://www.bfbc.org.uk/