Keep up with our activities in the most recent quarterly newsletter below! The featured photo, shows a cultivated margin at Glebe Farm, Hockwold, taken by John Secker. This demonstrates how well managed cultivated margins on the edges of arable fields can produce many annuals beneficial to both insects and birds. Our newsletter includes seasonal tips…
(photo credit: Lucy Hatcher) We were very lucky to host a visit from Natural England (NE) to demonstrate the work and potential of BFWN in the Brecks, and especially in the Breckland Farmers Landscape Recovery pilot project. This is funded within the government funded Environmental Land Management schemes with the aim of delivering species recovery…
The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) was set up as the public body to protect and improve the environment by holding government and public bodies to account. Recently it called for evidence on nature recovery as part of it’s scrutiny of Government’s plans and environmental targets for improving nature. The 2023 Environment Improvement Plan for…
BFWN is very proud to share a link from the Farm Wildlife website written by member and naturalist John Secker, who works at Glebe Farm, Feltwell, owned by Chris Cock. When Eliza Leat from RSPB Operation Turtle Dove came to us looking for someone to write a piece on cultivated margins and turtle doves, we…
Lucy Hatcher and Pip Goodwin started work with the BFWN at the beginning of April to jointly manage the Landscape Recovery project and take on the group’s coordinator role. Lucy previously worked for Natural England as an agri-environment and protected sites adviser in the Brecks, and Pip joins from the RSPB’s Policy & Advocacy Department…
A really useful output of the BFWN DEFRA Test & Trial is the simple monitoring tool for cultivated margins – the key intervention on farms for up to 600 rare, threatened and scarce species. If you would be interested in using this to assess the margins on your farm please get in touch using the…
After a year of workshops and discussions BFWN has submitted the final report to DEFRA for the Test & Trial in Landscape Recovery. We are very grateful to the many speakers who helped out at the workshops and all the farmers who contributed to the report. Many thanks to our partner Dr James Gilroy, from…
Would you enjoy working with farmers to enhance biodiversity in the Brecks while maintaining productive agriculture? Breckland Farmers Wildlife Network has an exciting opportunity! See below for more information and how to apply, applications close 16th December.
Exciting times are ahead for the network with the amazing news that the application for a DEFRA funded Landscape Recovery pilot was successful. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the application which was based on long term species recovery in the Brecks. This was a collaborative process involving the farmer members, Sam Hurst (Norfolk…
50 farmers, naturalists and friends of the network came together on cultivated margins and conservation areas near Feltwell to share experiences and learn about optimal management and wildlife benefits of cultivated margins in the Brecks. We were very fortunate to have Lucy Hatcher and Emily Swan from Natural England to advise and assist with identification…
BFWN has delivered three workshops so far in 2022 as part of a second DEFRA Test & Trial within the new Environmental Land Management scheme top tier, Landscape Recovery. These meetings have covered payments and incentives, how to create a landscape management plan for the Brecks, and long term agreements. Farmers opinions on these aspects…
An amazing 45 responses came back from our DEFRA Test & Trial baseline survey! Here is a quick tour of the results…….
Read more about the work of Dr Rob Hawkes on the recent DEFRA blog. He explains the outcome of the recent DEFRA Test and Trial with BFWN producing a landscape scale map of cultivated margins which are home to many threatened species. How could this be a reality in the Breckland countryside? “Encouragingly, most of the Breckland group…
We are very pleased to share the findings of the DEFRA Test and Trials work carried out by Dr Rob Hawkes at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The practical work drew to a close with meetings of each farmer mini-cluster where Rob shared the output of his innovative analytical tools in the form of…
On one of the rare sunny spells in August Mid Norfolk MP George Freeman visited cultivated margins at Bowes Farms Ltd at the kind invitation of BFWN member Kevin Bowes. We were able to explain how beneficial the margins are to biodiversity in the Brecks and how the work of Dr Rob Hawkes in the…
The artist who designed our beautiful BFWN logo is holding an exhibition in north Norfolk this month.
Current restrictions are not curtailing our efforts to work together. Socially distanced meetings with new participants carry on as we increase our coverage and consolidate the ‘mini-clusters’. Re-shaping farm environmental work Richard Evans and Rob Hawkes met with Henry Walker of FWAG to discuss two Mid-Tier agreements, explain the aspirations of BFWN and the science…
As soon as we accessed our funding, our advisor Rob Hawke started his work on species data and mapping work. Luckily this work is office based and has been relatively unaffected by lockdown. So far, Rob has accumulated over 3.5 million plant and invertebrate records, over 100,000 of which comprise the 500+ rare, scarce and…
One of the delights of being part of BFWN is the discovery of important species in unexpected places. In August, Jo Jones surveyed a patch of farmyard on manor that had been left for wildlife, instead of being tidied up (see below image). During the visit, 40 plant species were counted within the area (note…
BFWN are now corporate members of Plantlife. As members of BWFN, you will receive the Plantlife online newsletter and we can use the Plantlife logo when we explain our work.
Another iconic species that is genuinely facing extinction is the Eurasian Curlew. Until recently, this species received less attention in Breckland than Woodlark, Stone-curlew and Nightjar. BWFN is trying to change that and to increase the Curlew’s chances of survival Curlew – a Breckland bird Saving the Curlew it is arguably one of the UK’s…
Richard Evans, one of the founders of BFWN, has made the effort to visit the farms of our members. This is his report of one of his latest visits. “In early June I visited Glebe Farm, Methwold, to meet a Chris Cox and a John Secker. John is a bit of a legend in the…