During the summer of 2013, the RSPB carried out a farmland bird survey on my land with a note also taken of butterfly species.

If my knowledge of birds is a bit sketchy, my acquaintance with butterflies is just above zero. I suppose it’s what you would describe as a learning curve. Perhaps I have seen meadow browns, ringlets, speckled woods, and green veined whites as I walked across fields, but it is equally likely that I thought they were moths.

A fairly comprehensive list of birds was seen at both farms, with 28 species recorded at home, and 38 at the rented farm. The greater number at the rented farm is partly explained by the proximity to Strangford Lough, with most of the additional birds being water birds, or birds feeding on the foreshore.

Apart from the more obvious candidates like hooded crows, robins, and chaffinches, there were birds that I wouldn’t necessarily recognise. If you lined up a blackcap, sedge warbler, whitethroat, willow warbler and a treecreeper, then asked me to identify them, my ignorance would be horribly exposed.

Awareness

This isn’t the first time I have been involved with bird surveys and I hope it won’t be the last. This sort of practice raises my own awareness of what is happening on my little patch. I have written before about the pleasures of growing wild bird cover within the Countryside Management Scheme, but the ongoing level of commitment at farm level benefits hugely from personal input provided by experts or enthusiasts.

Occasionally, one of the field officers from the RSPB comes out and walks around the farm with me. Immediately after these visits, I find my awareness of birdlife and, more importantly, best practices for their survival, right at the front of my mind. For the next while, I’ll be thinking about various ways of fitting bird-friendly practices into my daily farming.

Of course, these outbursts of eco-warrior enthusiasm only last a few months, and then some other issue takes centre stage. The best example I can offer is my bird cover, which has reduced steadily from 14 acres, down to five acres this year. Despite providing a great supply of food for small birds throughout the winter (there seems to be about 200 feeding in the current field), I needed more grassland and the wild bird cover had to be reduced.

I had almost decided to abandon it altogether, when one of these visits took place. The enthusiasm shown by some of the project leaders within the RSPB can be infectious, and my suggestion that I should return all the bird cover to good productive grassland was met with undisguised horror. So much so, that the progressive farmer in me then had a bit of a wrestling match with my more pastoral side. And the environmentalist won.

Incentives

I can’t help thinking that the future will be largely dictated by money. If farmers are going to make more than token gestures towards providing real feeding sites for farmland birds, they will need financial incentive.

Most farmers are genuinely concerned about falling bird numbers, but are even more worried about the long-term viability of the average family farm.

The current call by the RSPB for Pillar 1 money to be diverted into Pillar 2 with the aim of benefiting wildlife has many merits. But the stark fact remains that a typical Northern Ireland family farm makes less money each year than their current Single Farm Payment. Small wonder, therefore, that farmers are viewing any shake-up of funds with a healthy degree of apprehension.