The English Grey Partridge?

3 full time gamekeepers plus a full time apprentice. More keepers than farm staff these days! It's hard work - they still have hundreds of traps & snares down even at this time of year.



You'd think that 575 horsepower of combine harvester would be noisy enough to move them away...
You would but the noise of the combine is constant all day
Pulsing the horn moves wildlife away from the header
Most of the noise is at the back and wildlife tries to return to the uncut crop for cover
The horn tends to force them into the air and away for birds and animals to the hedge at the end
With wild English partridge the youngsters will learn the horn is danger and when they hear it the next time they may be covey leader
English follow the leader as close as the red arrows follow red one
Seen them do a 180 degree turn in very close formation and fly back over the beaters
 

Vader

Member
Mixed Farmer
Gamekeepers are evil though, and do nothing for conservation :banghead:

I'd like to do more trapping but only have so much time to get everything done. Do your keepers feed all year round or have they stopped for a month or two now?

Gamekeeper do nothing for conservation??
What's keeping food and water most year year round and controling predators??
There is a reason that most shoots have more wildlife than land not shot over.

Think it was Ian Botham who proved this but tree huggers just ignore it and continue to blame farmers fir everything.
 
Gamekeeper do nothing for conservation??
What's keeping food and water most year year round and controling predators??
There is a reason that most shoots have more wildlife than land not shot over.

Think it was Ian Botham who proved this but tree huggers just ignore it and continue to blame farmers fir everything.

Hi @Vader, as Brisel says it was sarcasm. You’ll not find anyone more ‘pro keeper’ than me!
 

Roy_H

Member
Greys are rare for a reason! I have to stop combining at dusk because my boss doesn't want them munched up. Regularly I see a covey get up out of the spring barley just in front of the header only to land 20 feet further ahead. Each time there seem to be less popping up but some will have jugged down under the cutterbar. Occasionally I'll see a puff of feathers as one goes in the front. :(

The Frenchies will walk away and fly far enough to be out of harm's way.

Losing 20% of the day by stopping this early is a pain but we service up at night then start earlier the next morning so the net effect on harvesting capacity is less. Persuading the trustees to fund a 3000 acre combine for cutting 2200 acres was interesting!
I used to think pheasants were the worst. Even if you managed to flush them out of a standing crop the first thing they would do when you got back into the cab was run straight back in again!
 

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
We have now moved on nearly a couple of weeks, so I would be interested to know if any of you have seen any grey leg partridge chicks,despite the horrible weather we have had.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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