Partridge & Biometrics JOIN THE PCS The country’s wild grey partridges need more land managers, especially those with only a few grey partridges, to join the Partridge Count Scheme. Find out more at www.gwct.org.uk/pcs.
Partridge Count Scheme National over-winter survival only dropped from 55% to 53% despite the cold weather in spring 2018. © Dave Kjaer
KEY FINDINGS National over-winter survival for 2017/18 was 53%. Productivity, recorded as Youngto-Old ratio, increased by an average 13% to 2.6 young birds per adult. Average autumn density across all PCS sites increased 8% to 21 birds per 100ha.
Neville Kingdon Julie Ewald
In spring 2018, Partridge Count Scheme (PCS) members submitted 470 spring counts, down from 527 the previous year. A total of 5,532 pairs of grey partridges were counted on 144,710 hectares (ha), down 274 pairs (-5%) on spring 2017 when a total of 171,350ha was counted. The grey partridge stronghold in eastern England continues to report nearly two-thirds of all the pairs recorded in the PCS, yet comprises only one third of participating sites. Nationally, spring pair density decreased by 10% to 3.8 birds/100 ha, although pair densities in southern England and the Midlands remained static. Pairs in eastern England and Scotland increased by around 5%, achieving averages of 2.2 to 5.1 pairs/100ha. Northern England recorded the largest decline (-29%) in pair density. The national average over-winter survival (OWS) rate for 2017/18 was 53%, a small drop from the 55% of 2016/17. As a ‘Barometer of the Countryside’ this is good news for grey partridges regarding losses during the winter period. Many PCS members made particular comment about the cold and snowy weather at the beginning of spring 2018, and about the subsequent rain. Although PCS members in eastern England recorded the largest decline (-13%) in OWS to 53%, as compared with their 61% OWS in 2016/17, their OWS was at a high starting point compared with most other regions of the UK. Summer 2018 stands out as one of the warmest and driest summers of the past 100+ years, with little appreciable rainfall for most areas (parts of southern England recorded less than 5% of the June average rainfall), until August when average temper40
Trends in the indices of grey partridge density, controlling for variation in the different count areas
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Long-term sites New sites
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are extremely grateful to GCUSA for its ongoing support of our grey partridge work.
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Review2018.indd 44
Spring grey partridge pairs per 100 hectares (95% CL)
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www.gwct.org.uk
03/05/2019 14:28:15
