RSPB Scotland is offering farmers in Berwickshire the opportunity of free bird surveys, undertaken by local birdwatchers.
These surveys are a great way to find out what species are on your farm, what habitats they use and how you can help the rarer ones.
The Volunteer and Farmer Alliance project has proven to be extremely popular, receiving glowing feedback from farmers – a staggering 6,000 UK farms have been surveyed. It also gives local wildlife enthusiasts access to pockets of their local countryside they might otherwise have never visited, and a better understanding of local farming systems.
RSPB Scotland previously offered the VandFA right across the UK, but for the next few years they are instead focusing surveys on key farming regions in the UK, and Berwickshire is one of them.
Hope Farm is the RSPB’s 181- hectare conventional arable unit in Cambridgeshire. It was bought in 1999 and contract-farmed and the RSPB set itself the challenge of increasing wildlife on the farm through agri-environment measures, whilst maintaining profitability.
Every year, volunteers have closely monitored the wildlife – birds, butterflies, bees –- and numbers have soared.
Overall, they have seen a three-fold increase in farmland birds, achieved through carefully located agri-environment measures.
RSPB Scotland are inviting all Berwickshire farmers to get involved.