Conservation Matters

required, ensuring homes are safe and warm for all.

“One of the current considerations by government is to look at housing let through agricultural holdings and how that could be brought closer into line with private rented sector legislation.

“We firmly believe that any changes to legislation should only occur through bespoke legislation, taking account of the complexity of agricultural holdings legislation rather than trying to retrospectively apply housing legislation. That would be done through an Agricultural Holdings Bill but taking cognisance of wider housing policy principles. We would reach the same outcome but through a route that was better suited to tenant farming.

“Issues such as repairing obligations, rent, tenants’ improvements and farmhouses forming part of the fixed equipment must all be considered. To override the current arrangements without careful consideration could present real difficulties for all within the industry and exacerbate the problems that exist.”

SLE added that it was vital that action was taken immediately to tackle the wider rural housing problems in Scotland.

Ms Laing added: “Since the inception of the Scottish Parliament, there has been a wide political consensus to improve the sustainability of our rural communities but the stark reality is that we should be much further forward than we are now.

“Provision of rural housing is essential to the success of that strategy. We all share the goal of trying to increase the amount of rural housing but all too often that ambition is thwarted by delays in planning processes, lack of funding for private affordable homes, prohibitive infrastructure and utility costs and an ever-growing burden of private rented sector legislation.

“Members of Scottish Land & Estates provide more than 10,000 homes for rent in rural

Big Farmland Bird Count in Scotland 2022 Blackbird comes out on top again

Dr Dave Parish, Senior Scientist in Scotland, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust

The annual GWCT Big Farmland Bird Count is an opportunity for land managers to record the birds on a small part of their ground and highlight the positive impact that conservation actions, such as growing cover crops or providing supplementary food, can have.

This is the ninth year that the count has taken place and back in February 115 farmers in Scotland took part, observing a total area of almost 45,000 hectares. Once again, blackbird was the most frequently seen species, occurring on 73% of all farms taking part, and robin, pheasant, woodpigeon and chaffinch made up the remainder of the ‘top five’, again very similar to previous years.

In terms of the number of birds seen across all Scottish sites, woodpigeon was, not surprisingly, the most abundant species, once again. This common UK resident can form huge flocks in winter, especially if they start to congregate in favourable areas. Indeed, it is flock-forming species that comprise the other most abundant species recorded, such as chaffinch, barnacle goose, starling and rook.

It is most encouraging that four of the 25 most frequently seen species, and an additional five species from the list of those that were most abundant during surveys, are currently on the ‘red-list’ – this is the list of species of greatest conservation concern in the UK due to declining numbers. These were house sparrow, starling, tree sparrow, yellowhammer, linnet, fieldfare, lapwing, curlew and herring gull. Clearly the management of the land on these count sites is supporting these threatened species to some degree. It is not clear exactly what the land managers at these sites were doing to support birds on their land, but we know that 33% of participants were in the Scottish agri-environment scheme and 43% were providing seed-food, either via cropping or directly. This means that they could have been implementing a wide range of measures that may have benefited the birds in each area, but more pertinently it shows a desire to take action and to try to make a difference. Worryingly, these figures are significantly down on last year (by 38% and 26% respectively), presumably reflecting the prevailing uncertainty in the future of agri-environment schemes in Scotland at present.

It’s great to see that, once again, Scottish farmers have taken part in the Big Farmland Bird Count and provided some very interesting information. It’s particularly pleasing to see the red-listed species prominent in the data, showing again how important the actions that farmers take can be for biodiversity. It is a shame, though, that a declining number of participants were in Scotland’s agrienvironment scheme. I would hope to see that figure increase in the coming years once the current uncertainty about the shape of future schemes ends.