Farmer's Diary

Richard Green has provided this personal contribution relating to wildlife he has seen on his farm in Wiltshire. Richard is a member of the Waitrose Select Farm Dairy Pool and is a farmer representative at the Waitrose, Dairy Crest, Wildlife Trusts and WildCare marketing meetings. We would be delighted to receive more wildlife news from farmers for inclusion on the WildCare website so please feel free to mail them to wildcare@abagri.com.

'I was called to our Ridgeway buildings to identify a squat little brown bird, apparently tame or perhaps exhausted, sheltering in our buildings. She had brown legs, a long bill and short tail with a lighter speckled chest and was about the same size as a short, plump starling. I believe it to have been a Dunlin, perhaps a juvenile. The Dunlin is a bird of the foreshore and we are of course 70 miles from the sea, about as far away as you can get in this island. We think it could have been resting on migration from the North to its winter feeding grounds in Africa.

'Other visitors to the Downs each autumn and spring are the Wheatears, distinctive with their white rump as they move ahead of your vehicle. After a spell of about a month they have now moved on but will return in the spring.

'Earlier this summer I heard but did not see Quail, while walking near Nicky Henderson's Lambourn training establishment. They will breed here but also leave in early autumn. Unusually for the Downs he also had a pair of breeding Curlews. This was early July and they were protecting their pair of youngsters by "bombing "us in their flight.

'A little later on in October, look out for Golden Plover, particularly on the high points of the Downs in groups of 5 to 20. They make a haunting noise in flight with their wings as they fly round in incessant large circles at dusk, nearly knocking your hat off so to speak! We see them at rest with the tractor lights if we are planting after dark at this time of the year.

'Over the winter we also welcome little colourful Stonechats with their rusty chests, as they hop from one fence post to another. They seem to favour cleavers as a food source and there are plenty of those. Also the Fieldfares arrive in massive numbers to clear the berries from the hedgerows and this year they will not be disappointed. But for real joy you cannot beat spotting a resident bird, the grey English Partridge. After such an abysmal summer with insect life scarce from the cold and wet weather I love to see a good covey. I have just seen a covey of 18 half grown, maybe 8 -10 weeks old, which means they were hatched close to the monsoon of July 19. They are lovely to see. Not everyone can tell the difference from the more common red-legged French Partridge. The English are invariably closer packed and quicker in flight and can identify themselves with their chattering call as they approach.’