A charming little bird–South West of England

Photo: Western Morning News

The cirl bunting, a sparrow-sized bird found in south west England, has seen a remarkable turnaround in its fortunes in the past quarter of a century, with breeding numbers rising from little over 100 pairs 25 years ago to 1,078 pairs in 2016.

The boost to numbers comes after a 25-year project by the RSPB and local farmers in the area where the bird is found to help manage land in a way that supports cirl buntings, ensuring they have year-round food supplies and habitat.

Wildlife experts said the decline in the birds to a low of 118 pairs in 1989 was probably down to changes in farming practices, including a switch to autumn-sown cereals, increased pesticide use and removing hedges to create larger fields. The changes led to a loss of food sources and nesting sites for the birds, which forage in weedy stubble fields in winter and nest in hedges or scrub in the summer, when they rely on natural grassland full of insects such as grasshoppers for food.

The RSPB worked with farmers to help them take advantage of wildlife-friendly farming funding schemes, in which they receive payments for implementing measures to help cirl buntings.
These include growing spring barley, which after the harvest is left as weedy stubble to provide seed the cirl buntings can eat during the winter, and planting margins of grassland along field edges to provide insects and spiders for summer food.

While the bird is still mostly confined to Devon, a reintroduction scheme in Cornwall has established a population in the county which now 65 breeding pairs, according to the most recent survey.
Other species are also likely to see a boost from the measures implemented by farmers, with linnets, skylarks and yellowhammers all benefiting from winter stubble food and brown hares, horseshoe bats and rare plants seen again in fields, the RSPB said.

The unploughed stubble field has become a feature of the farmed landscape in Devon and Cornwall in recent years – thanks to environmental support payments that encourage farmers to leave cereal fields until the spring, to help over-wintering seed eating birds.