Carried out survey of birds on our farm (situated in the south east) this year found 68 species including peregrine falcon, buzzard, yellow hammer.and yellow wagtail .We put this down to having all crops harvested in august and light trimming hedges on a regular basis avoiding the nesting season, this allows dense growth and encourager's safe nesting sights unlike some neighbours who slaughter hedges every three years.We are finding increasing number of sparrow hawks are taking the small birds feeding on field edges. We comply with buffer zones and have small areas of woodland around the farm and some new hedges.but feel aggrieved when road improvements take out hedges and trees at all times of the year,Allot of conservationist would like vast areas taken out food production but i and others do like to eat and stay healthy

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How many acres is the farm? Wonder whether you've worked to encourage birds for many years on the land?

We farm adjacent to a built up area and compared to a few years ago there now seems to be a dearth of domestic cats i think most have been run over on the road.Apparently cats kill in the region of 8000000 birds a year.

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Carried out survey of birds on our farm (situated in the south east) this year found 68 species including peregrine falcon, buzzard, yellow hammer.and yellow wagtail .We put this down to having all crops harvested in august and light trimming hedges on a regular basis avoiding the nesting season, this allows dense growth and encourager's safe nesting sights unlike some neighbours who slaughter hedges every three years.

That's excellent!  I do sometimes feel that those who criticise agriculture for decimating bird numbers don't actually look that hard, I always see plenty round here.  Like you, I have noticed that regular light cutting seems to make for a much more solid hedge which is attractive to many smaller hedge dwelling birds, and is also more difficult for the likes of sparrowhawks (and the abundance of magpies we have around here) to get into to steal the eggs and young.  

I have never liked the 'leave it three years and then batter it into submission' approach which is constantly pushed at us - the only birds that seem to thrive in these thin bushes are pigeons!

 

Well just to paint the other side of the picture, we are on 3 year cutting and yes the hedges don't look pretty when they have been trimmed (the type of trimmer makes a big difference though, the contractors we used last year made a much neater job than our old machine!). We have fantastic hedges, most are very old, masses of blossom and then berries, and we have a superb range of birds; OK we are a mixed farm not just arable, but our count is 94 species in the last 10 years. The hedges are not thin and still grow fast, no detrimental effect of the cutting at all, other than spread of bramble where we get dead elm suckers, due to the Dutch Elm disease getting into the thicker stems, but get plenty of fresh suckers still.

What part of the UK do you farm

 

Leics