Bredon Hill offers a diverse landscape for breeding and migratory birds. Many of these species are in decline and often struggle to find nesting sites and adequate food resource in the area. The aims and objectives of the project is to restore, maintain and create new habitat for a variety of bird species that use Bredon Hill and the surrounding areas. West Midland Ringing Group are offering to share their experiences of ringing farmland birds in the region and to assist farmers with guidance as to how to create the right environment for birds to thrive during winter and breed during spring and summer.

                                                          

Over a 3 year period the project aims to:

• Deliver food, providing feed sites over the winter period and hungry gap. We would like to set up several sites for feeding birds over winter, look at growing our own seed so that we don’t have to buy seed every year;

• Identify areas where habitat could be improved for birds.
• Supplement natural nesting areas with a bird box scheme covering a range of species.
• Monitor birds in the area, birds will be ringed and monitored by West Midland Ringing Group (WMRG), to help understand the population fluctuations, thus aiding protection and restoration to more sites on Bredon Hill and beyond following this project.
• The project will provide an opportunity for volunteering and training on monitoring and tagging birds through the WMRG group as well as addressing the wildlife connectivity and habitat gains though CCARP
• To raise awareness of key bird species in the area to landowners. Project goals and aspirations
• Collaboration between farmers across Bredon Hill is key to success and can deliver on two keys areas, these being Landscape Scale Recovery and Local Nature Recovery.
• Key elements, which would deliver biodiversity across all farms: Barn Owl and Wild Bird Feed Corridor across all 10 Farms.

                                                             

West Midlands Ringing Group have been monitoring at Overbury on Bredon Hill on a small budget for the last year and have already documented over 1000 birds and 45 species, including both regular and rare visitors to the area (warblers, wood cock, Snipe, Dotterel) but there is need to address more sites than Overbury alone; more sites need to be found through surveys and habitat advice given to farmers/Landowners; this would boost the landscape character of the land by offering management of sites for creation and restoration.

A brief update: The West Midlands Bird Ringing Group have been out to our farmers on Bredon Hill to take in the array of birds and stake out some habitat restoration. They have made up a range of bird boxes for red starts, barn owls, small owls, and smaller birds to put up all over the hill to encourage the birds to breed on the hill. Our next steps are to encourage wider feeding stations for them through a range of habitat restoration techniques from margins to wetlands. We are seeking funding from all sources to help with the restoration, so watch this space for more news.