Barn Owl Boxes

One of the most interesting projects that we as a farm are involved with is the Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s Suffolk Community Barn Owl Project http://www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org/. The project covers the whole county with over 1200 boxes or natural nest sites monitored by over 100 people throughout the breeding season and is administered by the trust.

On our farms we started with 5 boxes in 2006 and now have 12 spread over the farms in areas that we feel have the best natural habitat to sustain our target species, Barn Owls. Since 2006 I have been through the schedule 1 species disturbance course, ladder training and my ringing training to allow me to inspect the boxes safely and with as little disturbance to any breeding birds as possible. When visiting boxes we are very careful to minimise any disturbance and take all measures to avoid upsetting any birds which can cause abandonment of eggs.

Tawny Owls 2010

Once chicks are hatched it is incredibly rare for a pair to abandon and in fact, the male is not allowed to roost in the box by the female as we believe she does not trust him not to eat them. This process of checking boxes includes blocking the hole before approaching with a ladder or telehandler and when done properly, after looking in a box the birds remain in situ quickly forgetting that they have just someone peering in at them.

   

This year's adult female at Kiln Farm



In previous years we have had Kestrels, Tawny Owls, Stock Doves and Jackdaws breeding, as well as Barn Owls roosting during the winter but until this year the Barn Owls have gone elsewhere to find a mate or to breed. This year I first inspected the two boxes at Kiln Farm in early June and found 2 adult Barn Owls in one of the boxes there. The female was already proudly wearing a ring and had been ringed as a chick in a nest box by John Walshe in Wetherden in June 2008, making her 3 years old.  The male was not ringed so I did the honours and we will know if he appears anywhere else. I had high hopes for this pair breeding but was disappointed to find an empty box when I re-visited in mid July.

At Westhorpe I was aware of Barn Owls in residence in one of the barns and was hoping they would stay to breed. The barn was out of bounds to everyone from March and I did not check the box until early June to avoid any unnecessary disturbance.

The view inside the box

On my first visit there was one adult, at least a couple of young chicks and two unhatched eggs which I was very pleased with. My second visit was on 12^th July and revealed only one chick with 2 dead ones in the box and having watched the barn for a while, only one adult which I have later found to be a female. I am confident that the chick fledged successfully but believe that either the male left or was killed whilst the chicks were young, leaving the female to try to hunt for 3 and herself.



The Westhorpe Female

I am a little disappointed to go from great optimism early in the season to only one chick fledging but it is one more Barn Owl chick than we have had in previous years so fingers are already crossed for next year! In the other boxes around Lodge Farm, Westhorpe, Stock Doves have been breeding in at least 4 of the boxes almost continuously from April and are still going and one of the boxes is about to fledge it’s 5^th pair of chicks for the year! In the other boxes there was a brood of 3 Jackdaws at Westhorpe Hall, a pair of Tawny Owl chicks near the church. The box on Kiln Lane contained a family of Kestrels, one adult female and 4 chicks. The adult was already ringed and was one that I had ringed at the same stage a year earlier. Last year she raised 3 chicks at Westhorpe Hall and went one better this year.

The round of late visits looking for any second or late broods to all of these boxes have showed that all the chicks fledged successfully.

Wild on Wednesday

Today was my next contribution to BBC Radio Suffolk's Wild on Wednesdays slot. To listen to the link click on - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00k5177 and go to 1hour 57 mins. The link is only available for 7 days.

 A clue to the topics I was talking about are in the pictures below. PJB

Taking stock of harvest

On the last Tuesday of August, the combine finally gathered in the last crops of harvest. The spring beans had been left till last, as they stayed green in the stem and there was a large amount of spring-germinated bindweed growing in them, which required spraying off to help combine smoothly. We finally got them in the shed and were pleasantly surprised to find that they yielded considerably higher than anyone had expected, with the hardship of the spring that they had to contend with.

So now everything is safely gathered in, we can take stock of what has been a difficult year and see how we faired and what improvements we can make for next year.

Winter wheat is our main crop. The lack of rain through the spring had caused significant stress to the plants across the county and we were not the only ones to experience up and down yields. The fields planted early, yielded as expected, with all the crops producing over 10 Ton/ha. This is the magic number that we try and average over our whole wheat crop. In the average year - which the last was not - our first rotation wheat, (i.e. in fields that in the previous year have not been planted with wheat) would hopefully yield 11 T or 12 T/ha+. This is because the soil and plants would have benefited from a break-crop like beans, grass or oil seed rape in the intervening year, so there would be more natural nutrients available and yields would be up.  Again, our early planted second wheats (i.e. fields planted with wheat, following on the first year’s wheat) were up in the high 9 t/ha and some were over 10 t/ha which is what we would expect on our heavy clay soils which help maintain high wheat yields.

However, where the planting date had been late due to wet soil conditions in October and the soil conditions at planting were not as good as hoped, the crops always looked like they were under-performing on their potential. This was what we experienced when we combined them. Yields were down and in some cases really down. We were experiencing average yields of 7 T/ha plus, with no late field bettering 9 T/ha. We are very glad that we had two thirds of the farm planted before the weather changed in October. Once we pulled together all the GPS yield data off the SD card in the combine, we actually averaged smack on 9 T/ha over the whole wheat crop. This was as we had expected with the spring weather but some other farmers suffered much worse yields, due to even less rain, on lighter soils. We heard reports of a farmer averaging 3 t/ha near Newmarket!!

The Oil Seed Rape crops were the stand-out crop of the year, benefitting from the early drill date and the deep strong tap root development of brassica plants. The crop never really looked like it would suffer in the spring wilt. The only problem we had was actually killing it! We spray it off before we combine it, so that it is uniformly dry over the whole field but once we sprayed it we had no sunshine, just grey overcast conditions and this made the drying process a very long and frustrating one. We actually had to wait a month until we could combine it at a sensible moisture level, which set us behind in getting the store full, so we then got held up  clearing the store, which had later repercussions when we needed to bring the wheat in. The rape yield was very pleasing and we averaged over 5 t/ha and we now have two extra lorry loads left in store to be sold later in the year, a nice problem to have.

The Spring Oats and Beans were drilled in one of the driest springs in history but they somehow found moisture and produced very good crops. The Spring Oats and next year’s grass looked healthy all the way up to harvest. They were combined a little damp, so we have had to dry them a little bit, to prevent the seed going mouldy on the floor. The straw was also a problem as the oat plants were dead on top but had sent out new growth from the bottom with new green leaf.  Because of this mixture of dry dead straw and sappy growing shoots,  the straw would have been unsellable. We took a brave and unusual decision to chop the straw on to the layer of new grass growing underneath. This is dangerous as we could smother out the little grass plants, it was a uneasy wait but with a few showers of rain the grass soon got growing with the help of the late August Sunshine.

The Bean crop was even more surprising as the plants were heavily podded once we got into the field. The yield was close to 4.5 t/ha. The harvest was delayed by a week due to the crop requiring to be sprayed off, as there was a lot of spring germinated black bindweed staying green and this would have made combining difficult. We had to spray them off with a special chemical due to the beans being harvested for a seed grower’s contract, so ‘Round Up’ could not be used, as it may affect the germination of the seed because that particular spray is absorbed into the plant and kills from the inside. The special chemical we had to use basically scorches the green leaf, so it just burns off everywhere that it touches and kills the plant from the outside, not affecting the germination of the seed.

All in all, we are very happy with the harvest, everything ran smoothly and we avoided any accidents. A few ideas have been logged for next year and we will see how they develop, the major one being a possible redesign of the barn doors and trailer unloading area.

Work is now in full swing to prepare all the fields for next year’s crops. Hopefully the weather stays fair and we can get next year’s production off to a good start in nice, damp, fine, seed beds.              BWB  

From Green Bins - to Compost - to our Fields

Most people in their back gardens have a compost heap of lawn cuttings, veg peel and plant matter. Hard work goes into turning and maturing the compost before it is moved back on to the vegetable patch to produce a bumper crop of home grown vegetables. The compost adds vital trace element nutrients such as Sulphur, Potassium, Potash and Magnesium but also the rich organic matter helps the soil structure.  The worms get to work, moving up and down the soil profile feeding on the decaying compost, which helps with drainage and in turn, the organic matter in dry periods, retains more moisture so that the soil does not dry out as quickly. For these reasons, all gardens love good quality compost and farmers are no different.

Organic compost or farmland manures are highly sought after by farmers for the same reasons. Livestock manures are in limited supply due to the reduction in livestock herds around the countryside because of the weak market for British meat being out-competed by cheaper imports from Europe. We are one of those farms that have stopped livestock production due to it being 7 days work for 4 days pay. So, of course, in stopping livestock production we have stopped our pig muck production. The pig muck gave us this extra organic matter that helped our heavy clay soil to be more workable and give us these extra trace elements and some cheap added Nitrogen.

In the few years, since we stopped pig production we have been fortunate enough to have secured a supply of organic compost. This organic compost comes from material that the residents of Mid Suffolk District Council put out in the green waste bins collection. The material in every household gets collected and taken to special sorting sites. When it arrives is looks like rubbish, plastic bags and other non degradable objects are contaminating it but due to developments in special equipment at these sites, the rubbish is sorted and the organic matter is left. The plastic bags are unwanted, difficult and expensive to remove so please try and reduce the amount that you put in your green waste bins. The waste then goes through a series of graders, mulches, crushers and heaters to start the breaking down process.  The compost is then left to mature in long clamps of a few thousand tons being turned and viewed from time to time. Once it is fully matured and all the unwanted plastic removed, it is ready to be delivered to local farmers.

The farmers pay for delivery of the compost to the farm and it is stored in specially registered sites on there. The sites are registered with the Environment Agency so that any effluent that may be lost does not end up in any sensitive watercourses. The compost is then applied to the fields in between crops by a contractor or the farmer themselves.

We hire in muck spreaders and do the spreading ourselves as we have the labour to do so. With two spreaders and one loader, we can spread about 800tons a day depending on how far the spreaders have to travel. The fields for the compost are chosen by the farmer, usually being fields that have poor soil structure or are lacking in some nutrients. We apply the compost nice and thick, the rate is about 30-50t/ha we have to be careful not to apply too much to some parts of the field that are naturally richer than others. We have to look at the Nutrient maps of the field that we have in the office before we apply the compost and the maps show which areas are weaker and need a little boost.

The compost then is incorporated into the soil so that the goodness and benefits can sustain the ground for the next few years.  We apply about 3000t of compost a year depending on its production and availability, during this year’s very dry spring we saw the benefits of last years compost. The fields on which we spread the compost last autumn faired much better in the dry spring. We believe that the compost with is high organic matter absorbed more water when it was available and held on to it longer in the drying spring. The crop then benefitted from it, as this extra water was absorbed when the plant needed it most and we saw higher yielding crops in the fields post-compost due to this and the wealth of trace elements that it brings as well.

The compost is a vital source of nutrients and organic matter but also you do sometimes get a flush of unusual weeds! This caught us out in the first few years but we now plan against that in our herbicide plan.

So please keep putting out your green waste, try and reduce the plastic bags in it and we will keep taking it and putting it back into the soil to help produce high quality food for you all. Our soil is certainly much better off for this compost! BWB

Kes

Falco tinnunculus

Kestrels have pointed wings and a long tail. There are marked differences between the sexes, with males being smaller but more colourful (grey head, red-brown back and grey tail with black tip) than the females whose plumage is a more uniform speckled brown.

Size

34-39cm

Weight

156-252g

Habitat

Kestrels are found in a wide variety of habitats, from moor and heath, to farmland and urban areas. They are a common sight near motorways and other major roads. They are seen throughout the UK, bar the Orkney and Shetland islands.

Nest

The 'nest' is a very informal affair; simply a lining of sticks or straw added to a hole in a tree, a deserted nest built by another species or a ledge.

Eggs

4-5 brown-white eggs in April-July

Food

Urban and suburban kestrels mainly feed on small birds but will also take mice. Country Kestrels feast on rodents, large insects and earthworms.

Voice

Shrill kee-kee-kee call

BTO Statistics

Kestrels are amber rated partly due to a loss of traditional farmland habitats. They have however, readily adapted to city living.

Breeding

Both parents provide food for their young. The female incubates the eggs for 27-29 days and fledging is 27-32 days after hatching.

Feeding

Kestrels search for prey from high vantage points such as tree perches or wires.

July on the Farm

Barn Owl Hunting



There was a great start to July with a Red Kite being spotted over the farm and village on the 1^st, 2^nd and 9^th of the month. There has been a red kite spotted a number of times recently and it is probably a young bird, hatched last year being chased away from existing territories by established pairs. It may be that it is scouting potential breeding sites for next year? On the 6^th I ringed a single Barn Owl chick in one of the owl boxes on the farm. To only have 1 chick from a brood of at least 3 is a little disappointing but fingers crossed that it will fledge. There have been barn owl sightings through the whole month in and around the village so hopefully the chick is getting enough food. On the 11^th the Buddleia by the weighbridge burst into flower providing a great nectar source for butterflies and bees and 12 Red Admirals were counted along with Tortoiseshell, Peacock and Large White. On the 10^th at Great Ashfield a suspected breeding Spotted Flycatcher was seen in the farmyard and for a number of days after carrying food back to a clump of Ivy. Whilst out walking on the 11^th there was Yellowhammers singing every 30/40 metres along every hedge on the farm hopefully indicating many pairs breeding successfully. We will have a better idea of how they are doing when we start ringing in the winter and can see how many young birds are present. We also had our last farm visit on the 11^th and had Swifts Swallows and House Martins over us as we travelled through the village and a hedgehog scuttled across the road as I returned home that night. On the 14^th Brian’s dog Flo, found a Little Owl’s nest in the workshop and by the end of the month the two chicks had fledged.
  

Purple Hairstreak



  The Suffolk branch of Butterfly conservation visied the farm on the 19^th and had a very successful day searching for and recording butterflies. They were able to record 19 different species with the highlight being Purple Hairstreak. I had already recorded Brimstone and Orange-tip which are spring species, so we are up to 21 species for the year which we are delighted with.

Keith Aldous reported a Peregrine Falcon in Westhorpe on the 20^th and Mike Shave has seen a clutch of Grey Partridge chicks a number of times. The Turtle Doves have been much quieter this month, hopefully due to them concentrating of bringing up their young but we will keep any eye out for any young birds.  As the harvest progresses we open up more of the cropped land and usually from our machines get a good view of what is being pushed out of the crops. There was 5 foxes (1 adult & 4 cubs), a Roe deer and fawn and 2 muntjac in the Oil Seed Rape next to West Farm, 2 foxes, and a muntjac next to the hall and another couple of fox cubs nest to the farmyard. There has been hundreds of young pheasants in the rape and wheat fields and a number of young French Partridges as well. One of the benefits of our Environmental Stewardship Options and habitat work is that there is always cover on the farm after the crops are combined. Areas of wild bird seed mix, grass margins, large hedges and scrub give these young birds a place to hide from predators rather than other farms where the crops are their only refuge. It always amazes me how many smaller birds feed in the Oil Seed Rape fields even when they have been sprayed off there a Blackbirds, Dunnock, Whitethroat, Robins and Reed Bunting feeding on the insects and spiders in the crop. Another busy month on the farm and on the wildlife front. As harvest progresses there will be much more to report for August so keep reading!



Pyramid Orchid on Westhorpe Village Green



On a wet day Brian and I took the opportunity to walk over the village greens and were able to record over 40 species of grasses and wildflowers and we will leave the green for as long as possible before taking a hay cut to allow as many seed to shed as possible. The hay cut is an essential process in the management of wild flower meadows as the removal of the grasses allows and second flush of wild flowers and prevents the grasses becoming too dominant year on year which, in time will smother out the wild flower species.

PJB  

 

Harvest Secrets

 Harvest Secrets

So what happens behind the scenes of a farm at harvest?

You may have been out and about in the countryside and heard the murmur of the combine in the nearby field, seen tractor and trailers brimming-full roaring up the village then bouncing back empty again for another load as the combine’s warning light starts to flash. All these sights people see from their car windows, homes and while out on the evening walk but what really is going on?

This is a day in the life of me during the wheat harvest:

6.40am – ‘Nellie the Elephant’ by the Toy Dolls jumps into action on my phone next to my ear and a sleepy-eyed zombie climbs out of bed (actually a couple of snooze buttons later).

7.12am – Me, one dog and lunch box are en route to the farm; wave at the dog walker and same cyclist as I do every morning on the same stretch of road.

7.30am – All are on deck at the farm, John and Nick are busy getting machinery ready for the day’s big push.

 John will be out with the big-tracked tractor either Mole draining; Sub soiling, if the soil structure in the fields requires it; or using our new cultivator to pulling down the stubbles and prepare them for next year’s drilling. Fuel will be filled up: the tractor takes about 500L a day to run; the cultivators need greasing and wearing points need to be checked; radiator and air filters need to be blown out so that the tractor runs as efficiently as possible.

Clean down from day before

Nick will be busy going through all the daily checks on the combine. More fuel: another 800L a day is fed into this thirsty monster! Belts, chains and sensors need checking; grease points need to be lubricated; windows and mirrors need to be de-dusted and cleaned; the whole combine will be blown down with the air compressor to clear flammable dust and debris from the day before. This is done as a matter of course as the engine is running so hot that dry dust and straw can easily combust if it builds up on or around the engine, starting a fire.

I will be planning the day ahead: which fields, where the tons of wheat need to go in store, how much we did yesterday, where the different varieties are in store and at what moisture they have come in at. I will be checking tyres on the trailers and filling the tractors with fuel. Yes, more fuel – less in the small tractors. The Fendt requires about 250L a week, as it is much more efficient and good on the road. A lot of planning would have been done in advance of harvest.  I have a idea of which fields need to be cleared early so that rape can be drilled in good time; I know which fields had a black grass problem so I need them stubble-raked to see if we can make the weed seed germinate on the surface prior to the main cultivations.

10.30am – The day will be warming up by now and the preparation would be finishing up, John would be out on the fields already and would be set for the day, returning at the end or if required by us on the combine. Nick would have a bite to eat before we stick the combine in the field and get going.

The moisture at this time will hopefully be around 16%. We have a hand-held moisture meter and the combine has one on board, so we double check before getting into top gear. We aim to harvest wheat at below 15%. This is the magic number for us as it can go straight in the shed and will store ok as long as we suck the temperature out of the heap with our set of stirrers and air suckers. If it is over 15% we have to dry the grain by using hot air blown through special holed sections set into the floor of our grain store. This is obviously more expensive, so we aim to let the sun do its work in the field, as the combine will still cover the ground quickly if we wait for an extra hour.

11.30am till late – Sun is shining and the moisture is dropping down to around 15.5% and the combine has now done 3 rounds of the field edge (called the field’s Headlands) and these are slow and fiddly. As the field is opened up, the grain starts to come in thick and fast. The Combine has a 30ft header on it and it can combine up to 55-60 tonnes of wheat an hour depending on the standard of crop. I will be carting away from the combine, taking two tank-fulls per load back to store. As the combine takes the crop in the front and thrashes out the grain, the on-board computer is recording weight, speed, area etc and is constantly telling Nick how it is running. The tank fills and when the tank is 70% full, an alarm sounds and the warning light on the outside starts to flash. This is the signal to me to get into position with the trailer so that there is enough of a straight run up the field to unload on the move. If I’m not in the right position, we both have to stop and unload stationary, which means less area is covered and time is wasted. A unload can take about 150 metres and that means 150m x 9m width = 0.135ha more ground covered. You can do 400 Tonnes in a good day: about 30 trailer loads.  If you stop for all of them, you will waste time and combine about 4ha less! Keep the combine moving – that is the key to a speedy harvest. Nick and I have worked out a good system of hand signals and gestures so we know when to unload, Pat helps out sometimes and has his own system!

As I take a load back to the farm, Nick carries on his merry way, opening up large block work as he works over the field to make sure the full width is always being taking in at all times. The combine has a special magic eye on the front that helps the driver keep the header full. This magic eye uses infrared beams to indentify the edge of the crop and so it steers the combine remotely to follow the uncut crop. Nick just needs to watch out for telegraph poles and obstacles and he can then spend more time getting the internal setting more efficient, so that the grain sample is cleaner and we harvest more. 

I would be getting back to the farm. If I was unsure of the moisture, I would stop and take a reading by scooping some off the top and putting it in our moisture meter that is calibrated to weigh the grain to a certain level so it calculates the moisture content. Then, if it was the right moisture, I would unload in the correct place by backing the large trailer into the shed and opening the remote hydraulic tail gate. Tip it up, mind the roof, shut the tailgate and pull out of the shed. Depending on the field we are combining, I may have enough time to use the loader to push up the heap of new grain into the corner or up on to the main heap. If I am tight on time, Dad would be back at the farm doing the loader work in store. Sometimes we run two trailers when the field is further away from the farm and this gives us enough time to push up our load, as the pressure to get back to the field is less.

This process continues until it starts to get late. Normally the moisture will stay below 15% through until about 7pm, depending on the weather. You have to start to watch out for the moisture creeping up as the dew comes in, this will mean that the grain will need to be put on the drying floor and also the dew will affect the efficiency of the combine thrashing the grain out of the straw.

Loading at night

Any time from 10.00pm – 1.00am (occasionally), we will start to pack up. The last load will be brought home and stood up in the barn to be sorted in the morning. The tractors are all locked up and the combine returns to the workshop. The large 30ft header has to be unhitched off the front of the combine so that we can get the combine through gateways and barn doors. The header usually comes home with the combine to the safety of the barn.

Three weary-eyed zombies walk through the yard, closing doors and locking up before heading back for a shower and bed. Then, if it is dry the next morning, we do it all again! Harvest is a busy and tiring time of year but a very satisfying one as it is the culmination of a year’s work. BWB