Checking Up On Agri-Environment Schemes - Can They Deliver For Yellowhammers?

Changing farming practices over the last 20 years, such as the loss of mixed farming, an increasing trend towards winter cereals, cleaner crops and improved harvesting methods, have impacted heavily on birds like the yellowhammer.

Numbers have declined in Northern Ireland from around 30,000 pairs in 1991 to 11,000 in 1997. Today, the current population is estimated at only 5,000 pairs. Consequently, the yellowhammer is now Red Listed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

To sustain a healthy population, yellowhammers have three basic needs – a winter food source, a nesting habitat and a summer source of chick food. Of these, nesting habitat is considered unlikely to be a limiting factor in Northern Ireland.

Farmers who participate in agri-environment schemes, such as DARD’s Countryside Management Scheme, can undertake options which aim to address these needs, not just for yellowhammers, but for all other seed-eaters as well. For example, during winter, food is scarce for yellowhammers, reed buntings, skylarks, linnets and tree sparrows. Scheme options, such as wild bird cover and retention of winter stubble, provide a winter seed source. Whilst in summer, options such as rough grass arable field margins, conservation cereals and wild bird cover in its second year, supply invertebrates for hatched chicks.

However, we need to ensure that the options within agri-environment schemes are delivering results in our countryside. For example, will having winter and summer options on a farm, result in increased numbers of yellowhammers?

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Environment and Heritage Service and RSPB are working in partnership to answer these questions. Together, they have drawn up a three year Yellowhammer Recovery Project. Work started in winter 2006 and will run until 2009 on some 40 farms across the eastern part of Co Down. This area was selected because it is the stronghold of Northern Ireland’s flagging population.

The project has three aspects, which are examination of winter seed-providing options; examination of summer insect-providing options and determination (over the three year period) whether or not providing these options on a given farm will increase its population of yellowhammers.

In 2006, fieldwork was carried out to look specifically at whether birds preferred the winter seed options and summer insect-providing options over other types of agricultural land, such as silage, pasture and winter cereals.

To date, results from the winter fieldwork confirm predictions that the winter options are strongly preferred by all seed-eating birds. Silage, pasture and winter cereal fields, which acted as the ‘controls’, were avoided by all species except starlings.

Initial results gained from looking at the summer ‘insect-providing’ options have proved inconclusive, indicating that yellowhammers are not taking advantage of these options. This could be because there are adequate summer insect supplies throughout the countryside but further investigation will be required to clarify this.

To determine if the options are having any impact on yellowhammer populations has required a longer three year approach. Targeted advice is being given to some 20 farms participating in the Countryside Management Scheme to ensure they have an ‘optimum’ mix of summer and winter options for the birds. A further 20 farms are being surveyed as ‘controls’ – they do not participate in the scheme and receive no specialist advice on yellowhammers. The initial 2006 winter and summer bird counts provide the base-line data which will then be compared with 2009 figures to see if there is any significant positive change.

This project is a first of its kind and will provide valuable information on how to best target and manage agri-environment scheme options for the future benefit of farmland birds.