Field And Stream

Field & Stream Jocasta, Jemimah... name our lambs!

THE FIELD

with Tria Stebbing

Today is the start of our lambing season. In ‘normal’ times we manage, sadly this will be our second lockdown lambing which makes some of the simple tasks harder. Normal life goes completely out of the window as we do not live on the field, so must check on the ewes every couple of hours, including overnight. We have made up a lambing bag with some very strange items in, that we carry around like sheepish midwives, waiting for the moment we are greeted by the first. Luckily him outdoors is a farm manager, so has a very understanding boss and if needed he can drop everything and run; he is also able to take annual leave during this time. Meals become snatched between checks, and sleep can become a couple of hours in the barn on some very scratchy hay. Our breed are good lambers and do not necessarily need us to be present, but you can guarantee that if we are not there something will happen. It is also a good idea to watch both mum and baby for a while after birth to ensure that the first drink of colostrum has been successful and that mum has accepted her new baby or babies, an important time. This year the Zwartbles Association have asked that all lambs are named with the letter J. Last year being H we had Hope, Hallaballoo and Hero. This year’s mums to be are Gemma, Gismo, Gorgeous, Gayle and two older ewes that we started the flock with. By using the letter system, we can tell

what year the sheep was born in, which is useful both for breeding purposes and for when we come to sell. So far, the names used by other breeders include Jack and Jill, Janet and John and Jilted John (he was rejected by his mother). I need to name possible 12 lambs so over to the readers. Those in the village will notice that we have put a box up for ‘Sheep post’ – please feel free to jot your suggestions down and post it through. There is a list of field jobs that need doing, so whilst on lamb-watch we will crack on and work our way through. It is a good time to rake the weed off the pond, avoiding the frog and toad spawn. Hedge laying season is about to end as bird breeding season is about to begin, so tools will be cleaned and put away, time to focus on the next field project. We’re helping wild owls – and they’re helping us humans too

By Alan Wells, founder of Pitcombe Rock Falconry Owl Box Project

Extraordinarily little is known about the good work carried out by Pitcombe Rock Falconry for the good of our wild owl population. Tucked away in Pitcombe near Bruton is a small falconry centre run by a dedicated team of volunteers who specialise in the rescue and rehabilitation of birds of prey. Apart from taking in these birds to help them on the road to recovery and potentially release back to the wild, I maintain a vital owl box project to help support the local owl population providing boxes for them to roost and hopefully nest. Three of our native owls frequent boxes or hollows in trees or rock faces so at Pitcombe Rock Falconry I provide boxes for all three: barn owls, tawny owls and little owls. All the boxes are made in house using proven designs and they have a life span of about 10 years. As well as making the boxes I survey all possible sites for their suitability, then install the box ensuring it is secure and in exactly the right place to attract an owl. The service does not stop there – I then continually inspect the box looking for signs of habitation. Having an appropriate licence issued by the British Trust of Ornithology (BTO) I can examine the box and take recordings of occupation, feeding information on to the BTO, allowing a bigger national picture of our wild owl populations, however this has been disrupted this year for obvious reasons. Pitcombe Rock Falconry currently has more than 120 owl boxes covering Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire with a current

Alan Wells with an owl box target of 200 by the end of 2021. You will be surprised just how varied owl box locations are and we have found that owls will occupy boxes quite close to human population, which gives us the benefit of placing web cams in these boxes enabling us to get realtime monitoring. We have established and located owl boxes in orchards and vineyards, where the owls keep the rodent population down and the growers increase yields from trees and vines surviving rodent attack at the roots not to mention eating the fruit as well. If you are interested in supporting our owl box project you can contact us through our website. prfalconry.co.uk