Always on my mind
“Look at this… You wouldn’t believe it was planted three years ago and yet it’s still providing a great cover crop for our partridges, pheasants and farmland songbirds.”
The ‘this’ being referred to by the gamekeeper with whom I was standing on a cold, blustery day in December was a long-term seed mix first suggested by a specialist brought in for his expertise and advice. “It performed as we’d hoped in the first year… was a bit thin in parts during the second but, if anything, was at its best this season in terms of variety of self-sown seed, ideal density and partridge-attracting insects last autumn.”
The owner of the shoot has, together with his headkeeper, long been actively trying to improve things for the wild grey partridge – not only because of declining populations but because he realises that whatever one does
