Wildlife at Abbey Farm

This section aims to introduce you to some of the wildlife that shares Abbey Farm with the crops and people. We concentrate on the wildlife that you are likely to be able to see or hear on a visit to use our access facilities.

Birds

Pink-footed Geese

The most numerous bird to visit Flitcham is the Pink-footed Goose. Up to 20,000 visit Abbey Farm and some individuals come back year after year. This is about 6% (one fifteenth) of the world population, so for this brief time Abbey Farm supports internationally important numbers. At the bottom of this section about the geese are some notes on seeing the geese here in the 2007-08 winter

80% of the world's Pink-feet breed in Iceland and Greenland, and then fly to Britain for the winter. So, during these cold months, this area is very important to this species. The geese mostly feed on agricultural land in NE Scotland, Lancashire and Norfolk.

In Norfolk, that had over 100,000 Pink-feet in the 2005-06 winter, their main food is what is left on fields after sugar beet has been harvested. At Abbey Farm we leave these 'beet tops' (it is the roots that have the sugar in and are taken from the field during harvest) out for the geese as long as possible before ploughing ready for the next crop.

Large numbers of geese are in Norfolk from October to February. They have special coastal roost sites where they spend the nights, then fly out onto farmland at dawn to start feeding. If we have fresh beet tops on Abbey Farm, the geese start arriving at first light, usually coming from the roost on the eastern edge of The Wash. If there are many thousand, they can take over an hour to all arrive. They are not protected from shooting, so are very nervous of people approaching on foot, and can also be disturbed by vehicles, especially if they stop nearby. Apart from that (and low-flying aeroplanes and large birds of prey like Red Kites), not much worries them and they mix their day with feeding, preening and napping.

Once they've found a good field they will keep returning day-after-day until all the best food is gone. Once that's happened, there may be a break with us having no geese until we've harvested another beet field.

The geese can cause problems by grazing winter barley. This is sown in September, so is a few inches high when the geese are here. Given the chance, the geese will graze this crop as an alternative to beet. So, we have to keep the geese off barley fields, which we do by parking a vehicle in the fields or putting up bags or flags to frighten them off. We do not shoot the geese as this may make them too nervous to return to feed on beet tops.

Some of the geese have coded rings that enable you to identify individuals. This means we know certain geese or pairs of geese have been coming back over several winters.

The geese are spectacular and are very welcome visitors to Abbey Farm. If you see some while you are here, please try to avoid disturbing them. Occasionally, it is possible for us to set up viewing facilities, but generally the geese are best seen from distance arriving at dawn and leaving at dusk.

Pink-footed Geese at Abbey Farm, 2007-08

Below is a summary of goose sightings so far in the 2007-08 winter. It starts with just small flocks, but numbers rapidly increase once we have harvested some sugar beet.

Please note the paragraph above about not disturbing the geese if you attempt to see them here or anywhere else. If you have any enquiries about seeing the geese here please contact us, preferably by email (organics@abbeyfarm.co.uk) or telephone (01485 609094).

Pink-feet records so far this winter include:

September 2007: The first geese were seen flying over on September 23rd. Up to 20 briefly joined the resident Greylags at the end of the month.

October 2007, 1st week: no Pink-feet have been seen in the first few days.

October 2007, 2nd week: groups of up to 120 flying over early in the week, but several thousand in the area by the end of the week. Occasional groups landing on the wetlands (west of the bird hide) where up to 150 by the end of the week. However, their visits here tend to be short-lived as this part of the farm is quite enclosed (they prefer wide-open fields). This is the first time in 30 years of Pink-feet visiting Abbey Farm that any have regularly grazed the wetlands. We think they have been attracted in by the relatively large numbers of Greylag (c.300)

October 2007, 3rd week: at start of week up to 300 on wetlands. By end of week these had left as the Greylag had also moved on.

October 2007, 4th week: occasional groups of up to 250 on cereal stubble fields, but not landing regularly. Flocks of 50-300 regularly flying over.

November 2007, 1st week: we finished lifting our first field of beet and geese immediately started arriving. There were c.6,000 by the end of the week.

November 2007, 2nd week: at least 10,000 on all days, with a peak of at least 15,000. Their main feeding ground was not visible from public roads, but birds could be seen arriving and leaving at dusk. The geese started grazing crops of barley and oilseed rape, but our measures to minimise this worked well enough. The feeding flock was disturbed occasionally, but generally returned to the preferred field quite quickly.

November 2007, 3rd week: numbers declined to just a few hundred by 22nd Nov. This is because the geese had eaten almost all the pieces of sugar beet left on the field. Large flocks are expected again once we have harvested another field of beet, though this will not be until some time in December.

Other birds.

Over 180 species of bird have been recorded on Abbey Farm. This total includes fleeting rarities, such as Black Stork, that just pass through, and others from the coast that are having a day out, like Gannet and Arctic Skua. Others, like Little Gull and Red Kite, are uncommon birds, individuals of which find the farm a good place for a few weeks, but then might not be seen again for years.

As well as these uncommon birds, there are the typical common species of inland, wetland and farmland sites in West Norfolk. Alongside these are species which are of particular interest because they have declined nationally or regionally, or because they are less common locally. For several of these species we carry out specific conservation management. Examples are:

Lapwing Reed Bunting Tree Sparrow Snipe Barn Owl Little Owl Bullfinch Yellowhammer Linnet Water Rail Grey Partridge Skylark

marking of nests to protect them from agricultural operations winter feeding and creation of nesting habitat winter feeding and provision of nestboxes creating wetland habitats creation of grassland networks and provision of nestboxes provision of nestboxes and good feeding areas allowing hedges to grow tall and produce flower buds and fruit winter feeding and good nesting cover providing a food source from weed seeds on farmland and good nesting cover increasing the spread of overgrown wetland habitat improving the range of nesting and feeding habitats providing a food source of weed seeds on farmland and improving the spread of grassland habitats for nesting

All of these still have good populations on the farm for some or all of the year. Water Rail and Snipe do not currently breed here, so remain a focus of future conservation work.

Mammals

Brown Hares and Rabbits are the most often seen mammals on Abbey Farm (excluding people and the herd of Beef Shorthorn cattle!). There are lots of moles, especially on the meadows and organic farmland. Fallow, Roe and Muntjac deer are seen occasionally, as is Harvest Mouse. Stoat and Weasel are more common, but still not frequent. Water Vole was last seen in the late 1990's. Noctule bats are easily seen at dusk during the summer and early autumn. Daubentons, Long-eared and Pipistrelle bats are also frequent (but not so easy to identify).

Reptiles and Amphibians

Common Toad, Common Frog and Smooth Newt are all common. They can be seen in ponds in the bird hide car park and in the main open access area near Flitcham village. There has been just one record of Grass Snake. Common Lizard has not been seen since the 1960's.

Insects

Relatively little is known about the insects here as only the butterflies, dragonflies and moths have been studied in any depth. All the public access areas can be good for butterflies in the summer. Clouded Yellow have been seen near the seasonal access path in most recent years. If you visit the farm and record any insects or other invertebrates, we would be very pleased to receive your records.

Plants

The public access areas allow you to see most of the interesting plants on Abbey Farm. The combination of dry and wet areas, and cultivated land and permanent pasture means there is a good diversity of plant habitats. Among the most interesting are uncommon arable weeds, including Corn Gromwell and Narrow-fruited Cornsalad. Recent conservation projects have the aim of conserving chalk grassland species. This work can be seen on some of our farm walks.

Organic farming and wildlife.

One of our reasons for converting some land to organic was to create a more diverse environment and provide more opportunities for wildlife to live alongside us. We have not done any systematic study of whether the organic land supports more wildlife. But, it certainly does create a much more diverse landscape as we use different crop rotations and, thanks to our box scheme , grow a wide range of vegetables and fruit.

At a purely anecdotal level, we have noticed some species making unusually good use of the organic land. Features of the organic management system may provide some explanation for this:

Use of legumes: organic farming uses legumes (clover, peas, beans etc) to fix nitrogen. We often grow Lucerne and vetch for this purpose. The Lucerne has attracted large numbers of Clouded Yellow butterflies (up to 40) and also the farms first known Green Hairstreak butterfly. It also appears that the Grey Partridge likes vetch crops, especially from spring to autumn.

More weeds: at certain times, organic fields can have high numbers of weeds because herbicides are not used. For instance, our vetch crops have weeds in, as does Lucerne when it is establishing. These attract birds like Linnet and Meadow Pipit, either for the feed value of the weeds or the insects that live on them.

Soils with lots of invertebrates in: we believe that the organically managed soils have times when they have high levels of invertebrates in (e.g. earthworms). This may be at the end of the nutrient building phase (after 18-24 months of undisturbed growing of Lucerne) or after farm yard manure has been applied. This seems to attract moles, which occur in high numbers. When this land is ploughed, some of the invertbrates become available to birds, and we have seen unusually high numbers of Starling over a number of days after ploughing organic land.

In our vegetable production we plough just small sections of land at any one time, but tend to be cultivating some land most weeks as the diverse range of crops need different preparation times. This means there is a gradual supply of invertebrates throughout the year. We believe this is of value to species like Oystercatcher and Lapwing. It also explains the three-month stay of the farms only Little Gull record, which fed almost exclusively on cultivated land on the organic veg field.

The invertebrates are also regularly preyed on by Song Thrush and Little Owl. The invertebrates, weeds and vegetables may also be the start of the foodchain that results in Barn Owl also frequently hunting over the veg field.

Organic vegetables are tasty: our customers say our veg is very tasty. In our first year of growing, we got the message that the local Brown Hares certainly thought this was true. They voted with their feet (and front teeth) and small herds could be seen wandering through the onions, carrots and Cos lettuce on a late evening visit. In terms of who was going to have the veg, it was either you or them. So, we fenced the field off. A bit ironic for a business with the hare as its logo? Yes, but they can still bound free among the organic vetch and Lucerne on the arable fields. Maybe not the same as a crunchy Cos, but they still seem to be enjoying themselves.