Farmland is as good today as it's always been.

[Deb London]

Rather than keep asking the same old questions in the shooting and conservation thread, I thought I'd ask some here, and get some views, in a quieter atmosphere.

I am interested to hear from anyone who has not noticed a decline in the wildlife of agricultural land in the last 6 decades. Some members (in more than one thread) have alluded to the fact that this is the case, in their experience. Or it's not as bad as has been portrayed in research articles, the media etc. If so, what types of farmland have not suffered decline in wildlife species in your experience?

Or if you have studied rather than observed, are you of the opinion that the evidence for a decline does not have a firm basis. If so, why?

(It doesn't matter what my definition of decline is. But it matters what yours is.)

I'm only talking about the years since 1950.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Deb London

Rather than keep asking the same old questions in the shooting and conservation thread, I thought I'd ask some here, and get some views, in a quieter atmosphere.

I am interested to hear from anyone who has not noticed a decline in the wildlife of agricultural land in the last 6 decades. Some members (in more than one thread) have alluded to the fact that this is the case, in their experience. Or it's not as bad as has been portrayed in research articles, the media etc. If so, what types of farmland have not suffered decline in wildlife species in your experience?

Or if you have studied rather than observed, are you of the opinion that the evidence for a decline does not have a firm basis. If so, why?

(It doesn't matter what my definition of decline is. But it matters what yours is.)

I'm only talking about the years since 1950.

I can't offer a reasoned comparison across time, I can though comment on my experience of growing up in rural Wiltshire 1960s/70s which I came to understand was notably poor in bird, reptile and and mammal species. I can only speculate about the causes of this poverty, although unrestrained use of pesticides and generations of intollerance of mammals and raptors (badger sets were still being dug out as anti erosion measures on the downland scarps and birds of prey shot for no obvious reason).

The one definable catastrophic event which I actually watched unfold in the early to mid 1970s was the advance of Dutch Elm disease across the Vale of Blackmore, and the opportunity that provided for hedge grubbing - it was the mature elms which had made removing the hedgelines a greater challenge. Progressive ploughing of the downland pastures also had disasterous effects, with the larks, partridge and hares that had held out, being further impacted.

My narrow perception is that things are mixed bag - in many cases I think the position of wildlife in rural UK is actually more secure than it was forty years ago, that said there have been losses which are perhaps near impossible to make good - certainly once ubiquitous in any ulpland area the skylark seems now a rarity, and from an area I also knew quite well - the Shropshire borders - the Curlews are absent. Still I'd never seen a Red Kite until two years ago, now I have them flying over my (albeit city bound) house.

CM

[bigdave60dog]

I go back more than 6 decades. There has been drastic reduction in almost every area over that time.
Dave

[nightshade]

Farm land is not as good but locally there are pockets where individuals go out of their way to help wildlife. One farm is organic and grows cereal to feed the birds another no longer uses cattle worming chemicals and encourages the two types of Horse Shoe Bats and a large roost of Natterers.
The old small field farms had everything that wildlife needed todays mainly cereal and dairy farms (with the exceptions mentioned) pay lip service to get the money and support isolated groups of wildlife. Hedges just ain't what they used to be in density and stature. Intrestingly a farmer interviewed by Chris Packham said no one had ever checked how he spent the money paid to him.

[Dorts]

I'm with Dave on this one. I go back to the 1940's! and in my opinion, only a very few things have improved.
A few positives first. Yes, there are more Buzzards about, the Red Kite has made a comeback and Otters have begun to recolonise long lost habitats, can't think of many more, but I'm sure there are a few.

BUT! tens of thousands of village ponds have disappeared along with the wonderfull wildlife they contained and the chance of inspiring thousands of children.
Thousands of miles of hedgerow has gone. Habitats for Owls, Swifts, Sand Martins, Lapwing, Skylark, etc. etc. have disappeared in the name of progress.

I wish I could take some of you back to the 50's and walk you along a country lane with its myriad of wild flowers, verges alive with grasshoppers, crickets, butterflies and buzzing with bees.
In the evening, those same verges 'twinkling' with glow-worms. Hedgerows were alive with birds. Dawn chorus's were deafening. I remember on warm spring evenings in the N E Hants village where I lived, the song of natterjack toads, nightjars and nightingales rang-out, a nightingale in every thicket.
House Crickets still sung in warm fireplaces and on rubbish-dumps. Swifts screamed around every church steeple.
Woods were coppiced and in spring were carpeted with celandines, wood anemones and bluebells with not a Spanish Bluebell in sight.
It is a past, almost certainly never to be seen again, so little remains.
Dorts.

[RKB]

Dorts, didn't you also have DDT, myxomatosis, pole traps and badger baiting? Grass wasn't always greener!

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by RKB

Dorts, didn't you also have DDT, myxomatosis, pole traps and badger baiting? Grass wasn't always greener!

I didn't say everything was greener. There was, and always will be mans interferance and barbarity, such as the things you mentioned, but sixty years ago there was still a place for nature to live side by side with us. That place is disappearing fast and in many cases is all but gone!
Dorts.

[Jonners]

When I was a boy, growing up on the edge of the fens in cambridgeshire in the 1970s, I would often lie in bed in the early morning and count the number of times the cuckoo would call... I would go walking and collect umpteen dead insects by the side of the road and I especially remember collecting lots of large red-tailed bumblebees... Lapwings, Corn Buntings and skylarks calling were a familiar sound... We had Song Thrush and Spotted Flycatcher nest in our garden. However, I hardly ever saw Magpies, never saw Sparrowhawks (as far as I knew ) and only saw Buzzards in Wales.

Now an anecdote: I saw a very interesting article a number of years ago espousing the value of the tracks and wide field edges that used to exist, but which in todays modern farming are rarely seen. As we maximise the use of every acre of farmland, the hedges shrink or disappear, the unkept tracks are ploughed up for crops, and the habitat for insects, mammals and birds becomes rarer. And that's NOT a shot at farmers, many of whom have seen their incomes from farming drop hugely over the last twenty to thirty years.

[stigofthedump]

I would find it interesting to know the total tonnage of insecticides, herbicides etc that are put on the land these days in comparison to 50 or so years ago.

Anyone Know?

Vince

[SheffieldLass]

I go back to the (late) 1950s - in Dorset. I too witnessed the gradual but relentless loss of wildlife rich habitats, the straightening of rivers, the draining of wetlands, the 'improving' of grassland, the levelling out of land (removal of damp hollows, ponds, banks etc), the ripping out of hedges, the loss of flowers from the verges. And of course Dorset lost huge acreages of heathland which was also a type of farmland - much to conurbation, but some to improved farmland and other uses.

We used to have to clear the squidged insects from our windscreens on a long car journey. We used to have adders on the verges, slow worms and lizards in our gardens. We used to have to have fly screens over our doors. We used to have to pick out the peas with maggots in the pea pods.

Very occasionally I have the good fortune to walk in farmland that is reminiscent of my 'good old days' ... grasshoppers leaping in all directions, the incessant hum of insects, bird song from all quarters, a rich grassland flora, and suddenly I find myself back in childhood and it hits home just how much we have lost.

Those of us of a certain age don't need the statistics and documentation to tell us how it was in our own localities (except to convince those who never knew it) as we witnessed it. Move to a completely new place and my knowledge of how it was there is almost as limited as a youngster, as neither of us experienced it. That is a reason why I'm very keen to pick the knowledge of the octogenarians who lived in my hamlet most of their lives, to try to get an idea of how it was here up to 60+ years ago, and how it has changed. Heck, they used horses to extract the trees ... an area of ground was the horse 'sweat' area. There is a path called the 'charcoal burner's path', as a charcoal burner lived in the woods ... there were 5 gates on the lane between the hamlet and the village that had to be opened and closed ... no doubt livestock there ... now all intensive arable. What my age does tell me is that what I see now may be very different indeed from how it was a half-century ago. When I was in my teens I thought everything was pretty much as it always had been, even as it was changing. By my late twenties I couldn't help but be aware of just how much had changed in my short lifetime ...