‘This is a robust recipe’: the experimental farm bucking the decline in UK birds — SkimNews
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- Allerton Project recorded a 145% rise in farm bird abundance since monitoring began in 1992, compared with a 23% decline nationally over the same period; counts are at their highest level since records began.
- Allerton Project has tested sustainable farming, habitat creation and landscape management for more than three decades on its 320-hectare demonstration farm, with Leake explicitly seeking to give visiting farmers methods they can apply on their own land.
- Alastair Leake observed birds feeding on the direct-drilled side of an experimental wheat field but not the ploughed side, because seeds, earthworms and insects remained accessible rather than buried.
- The bird table supplies winter seed from kale, teasel, sorghum and millet, helping birds survive the January-to-March “hungry gap” and become ready to breed.
- The beetle bank gives overwintering beetles habitat in tussock-forming perennial grasses; Leake says the beetles then consume crop pests, removing the need for pesticide spraying, while also providing insect food for birds.
- Nesting-season predator control at Allerton includes targeted killing of foxes and crows, which Leake says reduces pressure on eggs and chicks when vulnerable ground-nesting birds are most exposed.
Why it matters: For farmers, Allerton's 145% rise in farm bird abundance since 1992, versus a 23% national decline, shows wildlife recovery and food production can coexist when habitat, winter feeding and predator management are combined. Leake links beetle habitat to crops that need no pesticide spraying, while bird feeders support birds through the January-to-March hungry gap; wider uptake depends on incentives.
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