naturestimeline

Embrace and love our beautiful managed english lowland landscapes. We must conserve them but also improve them over time.

What's not to like with these birds? They are such beautiful songbirds. Keep your garden feeders and birdbaths clean, as bacterial infections such as Trichomonosis have been known to kill these birds and their songbird friends. And I don't know about you; I want to keep hearing their songs on my travels out and about and in my garden, from where the pictured bird was photographed.

Whitethroats (Sylvia communis), being long-range migrant species, need all the luck they can muster when it comes to raising a successful brood. What they don't need is someone or something near their nests. Again, when birds emit distraction calls or produce distraction displays, it often means a nest of young or fledged young are present nearby.

A Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) will try to alert its partner to potential predators when raising its offspring; such behaviours are known as off-nesting. When birds emit distraction calls or produce distraction displays, it often means a nest of young or fledged young are present nearby.

Conservation gone Cuckoo? A close encounter with a Cuckoo and what are the chances a rare bird like a Cuckoo could be outwitting a common species such as the Carrion Crow.

Given the opportunity where Land and Wildlife Managers use all the legal conservation tools, Farmland birds can thrive. This place and associated sound recording is a testament to that very fact.

The soil beneath our feet needs conservation, especially within our food and wildlife-producing farmlands. Within this sound recording, you might find evidence of how our farmers and land managers are doing just that and how it feeds the birds.

Debating the use of Larsen Traps. They are a legal and effective conservation tool used worldwide, but unsurprisingly, people have a love-or-hate relationship with them.

This is a second edition of why I suggest folks listen in to discover why I'm in awe of farmland habitats and the wildlife's ability to adapt to their surroundings.

A brief description of just how my Benchmarking might work for you. I am calling all landowners, land managers and others interested in Avian and other wildlife conservation practices.

Another description of just how you can, as a landowner or land manager, quickly realise when you are delivering wildlife conservation successfully. Data, data, data.

Here I describe at least one way of knowing when you're delivering wildlife conservation successfully.

The second part of this particular debate. I am answering the question "How can farmland deliver for the wildlife?" and gaining evidence of such actions through the voices of the songbirds and hard data.

Cuckoos, Warblers and Finches. An insane day spent monitoring my way around our green and pleasant English landscapes. Proper birdsong!

When a woodland is fit for songbirds, the evidence is a sight or sound to behold. No twitching is allowed, as time is always of the essence in my bird monitoring game.

When your hedges are maintained to their full potential, you will have many a bird breeding. Gaining evidence of such things is easy when you know where to look and how to find it. The proof is here to see via the calling songbirds and offspring a-plenty.

You know when a habitat is delivering public goods in abundance. Listen to this delightful day in a beautiful landholding with abundant songbirds in the background. Oh, how you can enjoy the day job!

My take on just what it takes to address the wildlife conservation issues on farmland. The perfect mix of appropriate land and species management in a food-producing landscape. What's not to like?

Listen in to discover why I'm in awe of farmland habitats and the wildlife's ability to adapt to their surroundings.

More proof as if we needed it, that doing the right thing by our increasingly imperilled ground-nesting birds is no easy task. Selective and successful removal of nest predators alongside habitat enhancements and constant surveillance delivers higher numbers of threatened species. If we humans were getting rarer by the day and required regular interventions, would we stand by and let things collapse all around and under us?

Sustainable farming businesses alive with Songbirds and other wildlife, what could be better? Corn Bunting's survival chances are enhanced only when our farms and farmers also survive. More food for thought from Tony Powell and naturestimeline.

Hungry for Blackcaps in more ways than one. Could you eat one? I can only love one alive, and when I observe one belting out its song, I feel so happy for the bird in question. You've made it mate, you've finally made it to good ole Blighty!

First of several tracks considering how and why our farmland birds and other wildlife can become well adapted to our ever-changing food-producing fields. This track recorded "on the job" is proof that #Meat and #Dairy Farms do and will continue to enhance their environmental credentials when allowed to do so. Wildlife and Farming working for the birds, what's not to like?

Aren't hedgerows beautiful? When thickset, complete with a lush understory and predator-proof, these places thrive with wildlife. Don't hedge your bets on birds feeling safe in any old hedge; it has to be predator-safe for birds to rear successful numbers of offspring.

Stocktaking as I steadily go around my client's fields means I don't get to see every individual bird species. Also, detecting birds by ear isn't plain sailing either. Songbirds with strange songs were commonplace this day.

Don't box me into a corner, says Mrs Hare to Mr Hare. A rather fortunate sighting of what has become an increasingly rare treat to observe.

One lucky Robin. Not something you witness every day. A Robin preyed upon by a Kestrel, which is more normally a small mammal specialist. Bear in mind, in times of seasonal dearths or gluts of food supply, this proves all Songbirds can become vulnerable to other species, which rarely would give them any hassle.

Organic farmers conserving Buntings in abundance. What's not to like and certainly something to shout about.

Listen to this not so shy and very vocal Bullfinch. Not every songbird is equal. Monitoring around the farmer's fields, and I come across this beauty.

A great sounding Skylark in song, plus a couple of other facts thrown in by the sound recorder (Tony Powell).

A 2020 sound clip while out surveying. Featuring Blackbirds and Skylarks in song.

Land management, asset management and continual monitoring. Why should you do it?

Trash talking the countryside.

The sound of a flock of finches. Recorded amidst a field containing solar arrays. Who says renewable energy cannot also deliver for the wildlife?

Who be that in the woodland block on my farmland bird walk then? The problematic species that is the non-native Grey Squirrel. They are especially a problem for my desirable songbirds and their fragmented dwindling suitable habitat sections here in lowland England.

Agronomy or farming itself is not one of my core subjects, but could this be the sound of healthy soils? Soils matter, livelihoods matter, and the farmed landscapes matter the most. The healthier they are, the healthier we become.

Depending on where you live, I guess you might see more of one than the other. However, where one species other than we humans becomes dominant over the other, it's not without consequences. Kites versus Buzzards, who is winning?

Why conserve songbirds? I think if you open both your eyes and your ears to the world around you, you'll realise why, if not, do listen in to my debating here. Featured within one of my personal favourites is the Lesser Whitethroat (not the Common Whitethroat congener as incorrectly suggested on the track).

Not all gamebirds are equal, the extraterrestrial sounding calls of the Wonderfully beautiful male Reeve's Pheasants.

Listen carefully to the gurgling bubbling type call, as uttered the wonderful gamebird that is the Reeves Pheasant. Part one of two sound recordings see also: 2020 BIRD SOUNDS FROM THE FIELD 25 - REEVES PHEASANT CALLS (NOT ALL GAMEBIRDS ARE EQUAL) PART 2

The Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) is an African migrant bird species with a voice like no other species on the planet.

An except of an old track originally recorded several years back (2009) only slightly altered from original state. Featured songbirds include Willow Warbler, Song Thrush and Chiffchaff among others.

This is an excerpt from a remastered version of 2020 BIRD SOUNDS FROM THE FIELD 4 - YELLOWHAMMER SONG. The original track is still in place unedited. "When combining your Fieldcraft skills and Avian behavioural knowledge, you can enjoy the natural world so much better. This Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a beautiful farmland bird, a bird with a song that lifts my spirits on the dullest or coldest of days. If you're fortunate enough to live in the countryside, check out my article for further conservation guidance of how to protect or enhance your habitat for Yellowhammers." www.linkedin.com/pulse/standing-u…s-tony-powell-1/

This is an excerpt from a remastered version of 2020 BIRD SOUNDS FROM THE FIELD 3 - CHAFFINCH SONG. The original track is still in place and unedited. "When in the field, observe and listen from the sounds around you. Birds such as Chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) put so much effort into making themselves heard, why do you or I choose to ignore them? A world without birdsong is not a world I want to be part of."

Asset Management and Asset Monitoring. Vested interests in food production and sustainable wildlife populations go hand-in-hand. What a privilege it is to walk these farmer's fields.

When combining your Fieldcraft skills and Avian behavioural knowledge, you can enjoy the natural world so much better. This Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a beautiful farmland bird, a bird with a song that lifts my spirits on the dullest or coldest of days. If you're fortunate enough to live in the countryside, check out my article for further conservation guidance of how to protect or enhance your habitat for Yellowhammers. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/standing-up-our-rural-songbird-communities-tony-powell-1/

When in the field, observe and listen from the sounds around you. Birds such as Chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) put so much effort into making themselves heard, why do you or I choose to ignore them? A world without birdsong is not a world I want to be part of.

Stocktaking around my client's fields and hedgerows and I came across this beauty defending his patch. Acting in self-defence is all this bird knows when it comes to surviving. He or she will likely only have two or three years on this earth of ours. The competition is rife, even in amongst his Avian friends or enemies. Other species to be heard or seen nearby are Carrion Crows, Mistle Thrush, Great Tit and Green Woodpecker.

English hedgerow Bird Song. Learn the fieldcraft and the birds come to you! Songbirds included within are: Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, In-field Skylarks, Great Tit and Long-tailed Tits, among others.

Birds, especially, are species of habit. Site loyal, they depend on managed habitats providing safety zones, and need to feed continually. Where they feel safe and remain well-nourished, they and their young will return year-on-year. Two seasons apart, we have a tale of two fields and a migrant Stonechat.