Sorry if I was not clear.
I am not a rewilder, I find the word toxic. It’s used as a cover for very damaging practices far too often
I am a farmer who respects and responds to habitats and ecology
I am on team bird, bats, waxcap and dung beetles
And team ‘notice and respect people’s hard work’
Ummm
That’s NOT the point I was making
I was asking why the human effort was pushed aside in your post and you just focused on ‘one easy step’ instead
Especially when that ‘one easy step’ is a huge issue And very site specific And plays into the ‘us v them’ tribal nonsenses we have to deal with
A cow in some blackthorn scrub.
Farming with nature, or nature with farming…
The basics (move the herbivores around the place a lot) is straightforward, and as long as you have the building blocks in place (seed sources, wild populations nearby etc) it all kicks in pretty fast.
And you still get to eat good food.
Some small black sheep on a scrubby bit of Dartmoor with a scattering of trees.
Being part of something so impactful must have been amazing!
How long were you involved?
(Mind you I’d love some of those sheep as I’ve a large scheduled ancient monument that I’m supposed to keep clear of trees…
My sheep haven’t managed it yet even with decades of grazing! Maybe I need goats?)
You could have said
‘this is Carrifran, where, after deep research, 750,000 trees were planted, as well as deer/ sheep removed, to create a very special woodland’
the effort of the historians, ecologists, planters, tree nursery staff, etc etc are pushed aside? Just so you can say ‘sheep are bad’?
What a way to remove/ignore/discount the human effort that was involved!
Sheep and deer removal didn’t just ✨magical ✨ allow the trees to take over!
Planting over 750,000 trees, after meticulous research into pollen records, over decades is why the trees are there.
I’m with you on this.
Drives me nuts.
That’s not a like for like assessment.
It’s like saying ‘here, I have a half finished poem, I shall check it against a blank bit of paper! look! So many letters!’ When it needs checking against another half finished work, as well as a classic!
A big dung beetle
The hole of a dung beetle next to some sheep poo
A big dung beetle
Of those 39 birds 9 are red list birds and 7 amber list ones.
All I can do for them is make sure my farm feeds them and houses them as well as us. (As well as, you know, decarbonise my life and appose war…)
So pardon me while I keep the sheep and cows. They have a job to do, and it’s important.
Well it IS possible… they have spread out so well, it’s just without seeing it I’m not adding it to the list!
A drawing of a cross looking goldfinch
Raven
Crow
Jackdaw
Magpie
Jay
Buzzard
Sparrowhawk
Pied wagtail
Greater spotted woodpecker
Green woodpecker
Nuthatch
Treecreeper
Woodcock
Goldcrest
Goldfinch
Meadow pipit
Skylark
Tawny owl
)My Merlin app added
Cirl bunting, blackcap and firecrest
But I don’t 100% believe it…)
So 39
Not a bad day!
A drawing of a wren
Birds seen or heard on my Dartmoor livestock farm today
(NB: I went looking)
House sparrows
Chaffinch
Wren
Blackbird
Robin
Dunnock
Siskin
Greenfinch
Yellowhammer
Blue tit
Great tit
Coal tit
Marsh tit
Long tailed tit
Redpoll
Wood pigeon
Stock dove
Redwing
Mistle thrush
Song thrush
Starling
TBC…⬇️
A minimalist watercolour of birds on coastal rocks.
A minimalist watercolour of birds on coastal rocks.
Two small watercolours
One with just 2 colours on a smooth karst stone paper
One with 5 colours on nice watercolour paper.
Both about the shape of oystercatchers.
Which do you like best?
The peat maps still farcical though…
And he hasn’t done a thing about that.
A sketch of flying oystercatchers
A sketch of a flying oystercatcher
A sketch of a flying oystercatcher
A sketch of a flying oystercatcher
A bit more practice.
Tiny Oystercatchers in watercolour.
Using two colours and two brushes and the bare minimum.
I need to work on the flying ones. But they are hard!!!
I am pleased with the others though.
A black blob with a beak Looks kinda like a oystercatcher bird.
A few black blobs with beaks Looks kinda like a oystercatcher birds
A few black blobs with beaks on a small sketchbook page. They look kinda like a oystercatcher birds
Tiny sketches.
Working on the shape of oystercatchers in watercolour.
Well AI is (on a surface level) cheaper and gives (wrong but) definite & fast answers.
And who has the money to pay people to sit about in fields counting plants anymore…
And add in the myopic thinking from a small group of vocal, well funded and connected folk and you get this!
Ffs.🤦♀️
That was garbled.
I mean the focus on heather means we have to watch sheep specialist dung beetles die out.
It’s madness.
Personally I am close to despair over having to watch Minotaur beetles die out due to the daft proposals that put heather over them (amain part of the natural food web winter and early spring)
What exactly do they think the birds eat when nesting on the uplands?
It’s RARE!
So let’s make a payment option that is Hard to access and shut it suddenly in early spring, when folk may be waiting for the species to show up, or waiting for a advisor to survey land…
Then take it away because not enough people were able to access it!
Then watch it get rarer!
Right. I’m off out to lay a hedge, move some muck and maybe get out water supply fixed.
Back later 👋
That may help my blood pressure!!
Also… that bit about countryside stewardship higher tier having a similar option….
Yeah
That’s only available if you get invited!
You can’t just apply for it.
The Gov have to ✨magically✨ know where the Rare grasslands are and your not allowed to contact them about it
www.gov.uk/government/p...
Species rich grassland in summer
So you make something hard to access, supporting something rare, and then take it away because so few people used it?
Classic.
Also don’t forget this was a tricky to access option.
And this whole scheme was pulled without notice.
Many of the potential sites for this would had been waiting for spring for an advisor visit or gathering evidence because its ‘tricky’ to count plants if they are just seeds still.
A screenshot of a website page saying Removed GRH6 Manage priority habitat species-rich grassland (endorsed) £646/ha Removed GRH11 Cattle grazing supplement (non-moorland) £59/ha Reason for including: Like the arable farmland wildlife package, most of these grassland actions have moderate to high uptake and deliver moderate to high value for money. Some (for example, GRH1: Manage rough grazing for birds) currently have low uptake but deliver high to very high value for money. They also support important grassland habitat for birds in the uplands. Overall, this package of farmland wildlife actions makes a strong contribution to our environmental targets. Reason for removing: GRH6 had moderate uptake. It was the only endorsed action in the SFI24 offer. It's being removed as part of the simplification of SFI26 as it required bespoke Natural England adviser endorsement. An equivalent of GRH6 is in the CS Higher Tier offer.
A species rich grassland
Next bit of madness
The removal of the species rich grassland offer
Oh dear lord where do I start?
Firstly species rich grasslands are rare
And that means there aren’t very many of them…
(Dear god, this is stupid)
Hence the ‘moderate uptake’
Because ‘RARE’!!! Ffs
It’s coming from a ‘bare field’ starting point.
It’s bound to still have to ‘no grazing’ element in the creation bit hence the £ which is fine in a corner of a bare field, where the damage is extensive, but utterly useless in an upland grassland scenario. Like seriously ecologically damaging.
Blackthorn in flower. White flowers and light green leaves.
Seriously what would you do faced with this?
Council tax is going up…
Spend a couple of hours cutting that scrub back (especially if it’s young scrub) and ‘recreate’ for a more money?
Or not?
So are you doing…
Bills need paying…
& it’s ‘only’ some blackthorn in an old paddock by the woods… 🤦♀️
A screenshot from the gov website page saying Included SCR1 Create scrub and open habitat mosaics £588/ha Included SCR2 Manage scrub and open habitat mosaics £350/ha
A photo of gorse flowers.
Take this for example…
You get more for scrub mosaic creation than for already having a scrub mosaic on your land
So you are penalised for having already got the high nature habitat…
Or you quietly do a bit of scrub clearance now, in spring, so you can ‘recreate’ it with extra money.
Ffs guys!!
Good lord this is damaging.
I’m not talking about farming, I’m talking about nature.
This is insane stuff.
defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2026/02/24/s...
