Stories from the farm March 26

Lapwing on the edge of one of our wetland pools

Taking a conventional view on things January would probably be the time to take a look over happenings past. But what with one meteorological event or another the beginning of this year was a little diverting and besides, what I was going to take a squint back over was some of my last years farm nature notes. One of the great comforts to be found in nature is it's continual cycling and renewal so actually there is no break point in the year, so I'd say I'm free to have a pop at it now without using up too many liberties. Just to be clear this is not really a review, it's more of a 'how's things?' to our wild friends and neighbours with whom we share the farm.

The prize for abundance, and probably the happiest wildlife memories, of this past year has to go the the little brown jobs, the bird watchers catch-all for the small nondescript thing that just flitted through the hedge which we may or may not bother to identify. And that would be a pity because there is beauty in the knowing. The linnets had a great summer here last year and more or less brown jobs they may be, but how they make me smile when I hear them chattering and tinkling their modernist songs. We've had a gradually growing population over the last decade or so from 2s and fews to around 30 last spring to an end of summer group of around 150. What a terrific noise. The hot summer seemed to suit them, lots of feeding amongst quick growing annual plants (I'm struggling to bracket them as weeds) that regenerated and shot up to seed in bare patches where we'd fed the cows over winter. In later summer they moved on to a field we had sown with new grass to which we'd added a bit of mustard and fodder radish seed as an experiment in providing more food for the wild birds. They grew, they flowered (and hummed with hoverflies, bees and butterflies), they set seed and the birds got happily stuck in. At peak rush hour in the early autumn there were mixed flocks of many hundreds of birds in the field all day, loads of linnets, large number of greenfinch and goldfinch with a seasoning of yellowhammers, tree sparrows and chaffinches. Varying numbers have continued to use it all winter. All for less than £20 worth of extra seed in my grass mixture. Definitely one of my better investments. The sparrow hawk thought so too.

The frogs had a less productive time sadly, after all the rain in the first half of the winter filled the pools and many hollows, the exceptionally dry start to the spring left much of the spawn high and dry in all but the bigger of the pools, which they seem to favour less. I fear the dragonflies may have been similarly challenged for while we had plenty water all summer in the main pools (much to the cows pleasure, it was a pool party summer for them) the weedy shallow pools where we see most dragonfly activity were much reduced or even baked dry.

Making use of the remaining pools and ever increasing areas of exposed mud as the water fell, several pairs of lapwing attempted to nest and two were successful in fledging young. A redshank took up residence for a couple of months in spring also, the first time we have seen them other than in passing. Despite seeming very settled we never saw two at once and so presumably it moved on in search of a mate elsewhere. I really hope to hear it's call again this year, in duet. From abundance to rarity, I got quite the surprise one evening rumbling across the lambing field in the tractor watching a curlew that wasn't a curlew that turned out to be a whimbrel. A rather scarcer small cousin of the curlew, it hung around for a month or so feeding all around the wetland and damper fields presumably topping up reserves for an onward migration to breeding grounds far north. After a month it was joined by a second bird and soon after departed. That takes us to 10 species of wading birds now spotted using the farm.

Among the mammals the hares seemed to have a terrific summer, with numbers in the autumn I don't recall having seen before. Our move over recent years to a longer grass grazing system probably suits them well, more cover, more feed, but I suspect the warm and dry was a great boost to young leverets. Badgers are ever abundant and we learn more of their ways as we spend more time out after dark with thermal and night vision optics. I always had them pigeoned as foragers and opportunist omnivores and most look that way, though we are seeing some clearly hunting, behaving more like a fox or even a spaniel, questing the wind and hunting through cover, even flushing and chasing hares (unsuccessfully!) and catching and killing well grown young geese. A good reminder that animals are individuals as well as a member of a species.

The pinkfeet geese are here at the moment, roosting on the big pool and grazing in the fields, I suspect the same group of families that have been turning up each February for the last few years. They have taken to staying just long enough to say hello to the first swallows before leaving for an arctic breeding summer. Perhaps that's the passing of the baton and an end to one nature year and the start of the next. Though as I write this I can hear them chattering and squabbling just beyond the garden, the mating game sounds well advanced to me, the circles of life going round and round; much the best way.

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The March order form is now updated and online. You can find the link below to the order form with all our different meat cuts available, along with practical info about delivery/collection dates.