Rural birds in Britain and Nepal

The Volunteer & Farmer Alliance in the Southwest’ by Felicity Clarke
The farmland birds of Lumbini, Southern Nepal’ by Deborah Deveney

Tuesday 13^th October 2009

After we had finished the formal business of the AGM, we had not just one but two talks by RSPB members of staff. The first was by Felicity Clarke, regional coordinator of the Volunteer and Farm Alliance. The V&FA has now been going for 10 years, having been started in the Midlands in 1999. It offers free bird surveys to farmers all over the UK, and offers advice to help them take positive action for wildlife. Volunteer surveyors visit the farm early in the Spring to meet the farmer and see the land, and three or four times between April and June they walk all the field boundaries and note down all bird species.

Felicity gave us figures to show how drastically the breeding populations of some of our farmland birds have declined: from 1970 to 2004 Corn Buntings declined by 89% and Tree Sparrows by 94%. Even Starlings have declined by 72%. It’s not all doom and gloom though - the advice given helps farmers join the higher level stewardship scheme, which gives them financial support for making farms more wildlife friendly.

In the South West, the VF&A has surveyed 550 farms (1.3% of the total, 1.7% of the farmed land) - though each one is normally surveyed only for one year. The most widespread birds are Blackbird and Chaffinch, found on 100% of all farms. Of the 15 farms surveyed in Devon this year, all had Song Thrushes but none had either Lapwing or Yellow Wagtail - we need more of those wet meadows.

The second speaker, Deborah Deveny, was Felicity’s predecessor with the V&FA, but has now moved on to the Cirl Bunting Project. However for her talk, Deborah took us further afield to Lumbini, in Nepal. Nepal can be divided into three zones: the high mountains, the hills (which would count as mountains in Britain) and the Terai - the flat lowlands. Lumbini is in the Terai, close to the border with India.

The RSPB works with Bird Conservation Nepal, to help with conservation and education. Deborah spent 3 weeks in Lumbini - which is one of 27 “Important Bird Areas” in Nepal, 12 of which have no protection at all. The Lumbini area was formerly know for its tall grassland, but very few areas remain. There are also important wetland areas. The key bird in the area is the Sarus Crane - Deborah saw 72 of the estimated 200 birds in the area. She also showed us pictures of many of the other species, including owls, lapwings and Stone Curlew.

Deborah told us about some of the problems affecting conservation in Lumbini, not least conflicts with other land users. There has also been significant loss and mismanagement of wetlands. The country has suffered from political instability over recent years. While she was there, Deborah spent some time helping to educate the local children, showing them birds through her telescope. She worked with the local people to show them how to survey birds better and help them with their conservation work.

It is good to see that the RSPB is working to improve conservation not only here in the UK, but also around the world via Birdlife International. The two talks made for a very interesting evening.

Richard Swinbank