The nature-friendly farm estate which hosts the BBC Springwatch programme has won a top conservation prize at the Royal Norfolk Show.

The Wild Ken Hill estate in west Norfolk has won the Grey Partridge Award - the first trophy to be awarded at the 2022 show.

Presented by law firm Mills and Reeve, the award promotes the recovery of the grey partridge, regarded as a key indicator of the health of farm environments.

Harry Buscall, whose family owns the estate near Snettisham, said he was "truly honoured" to receive the award on behalf of his team.

"It is right up there, because it is an indicator of the health of your farming system," he said.

"If you have got English partridge you are going to have a whole load of other species like hares, yellowhammers and whitethroats. And they are beautiful farmland birds themselves.

"We largely just farm in rectangles now in the middle of fields, and all the boundaries are given over to creating habitats.

"So you might have pollen and nectar mixes for pollinators, or cultivated headlands which are good for things like lapwings, oystercatchers and stone curlews, but also a nice place for English partridges to come in and feed their young.

"The seeds and insects that they need to feed off rely upon a healthy ecology, so providing them with the right habitat where they can find that abundantly available through the right farming practices, not using synthetic chemical in your agricultural process if possible, and providing good nesting habitat.

"These are the key ingredients we have been working on with our farming system."

Also receiving the award was Wild Ken Hill ranger John Dollman - marking a double celebration for his family after his son Thomas was part of the team which won the same prize last year.

Lauren Parker, a partner in the private client team at Mills and Reeve, said the award judges were "hugely impressed" with Wild Ken Hill's conservation ambitions.

"This is about so much more than just the grey partridge," she said.

"It is about farming and creating habitats that do so much to increase biodiversity, that focus on the regeneration of soil and its fertility, which inevitably leads to the increase in so many native species, of which the grey partridge is one - but a species which is regarded by many as being the bellwether of the health of our countryside."