FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INCREASING BIRD POPULATIONS ON ARABLE FARMLAND IN ENGLAND

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FIELD OF DREAMS

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FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INCREASING BIRD POPULATIONS ON ARABLE FARMLAND IN ENGLAND I. HENDERSON One of the most important conservation issues effecting bird populations in lowland Europe over the last 30 years has been the widespread loss of structural complexity on farmland, at both landscape and field scales (Benton et al., 2003; Donald et al., 2006). In arable areas, simplified rotations, through the replacement of a variety of spring crops with winter-sown cereals (Fig. 1) have been coupled with technological advances in crop management to attain greater control of competitive plants, invertebrates and disease (Chamberlain et al., 2000). Together these factors have contributed to well-documented declines in the abundance and variety of many plants and animals associated with farmland, and not least birds (Fig. 2) (Siriwardena et al., 1998). Examples include an overall reduction in the availability of food for seed-eating and insectivorous birds and a lack of suitable nest sites for species such as lapwings (Vanellus vanellus) (Sheldon et al., 2002) and skylarks (Alauda arvensis) (Donald, 2004).

Figure 1. The switch from winter to spring cereal Demands for higher standards in the UK, for the protection of biodiversity, soils and raw materials (Curry et al., 2002), have driven programmes aimed at underpinning a UK government commitment to reverse declining bird populations on farmland by the year 2020 (as measured by the official Farmland Bird Index (FBI). In doing so, the mechanisms that influence bird densities around farmland (nest sites summer food and winter food) need to be understood and addressed through modified management practices on a geographic scale large enough to effect positive and relative changes in national bird populations. Ways that this could be achieved, either for a massive uptake of key management prescriptions and/or for large areas of crops and crop rotations to make basic and fundamental contributions to habitat and food provision.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 44 (2008)


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