A lifetime of work for wildlife, inspired by a rolling agricultural landscape rich in natural history, has earned a Norfolk farmer a top farm conservation prize.
By Norfolk standards, the landscape at Muckleton Farm can almost be classed as undulating.
These rolling fields, within sight of the coastline near Burnham Market, tell their history through Ice Age geology and Stone Age relics.
And the responsibility for continuing the land's natural legacy – while maintaining its food production potential – inspired a lifetime of investment for wildlife which has been rewarded with an industry accolade.
David Lyles was presented with the 2016 Ian MacNicol Memorial Trophy, organised by Norfolk FWAG, the county's Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, to recognise the year's most significant contribution to nature within a farm business.
His efforts, which extend far beyond the measures stipulated and funded by his Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) scheme, have created food and habitats for species including brown hare, Montagu's harrier, stone curlew, pink-footed geese, and grey partridge.
A spinney of woodland has been planted in every field, along with wild bird food plots and pollen and nectar mixes, linked into wildlife corridors via meticulously-planned field margins.
His penchant for experimentation impressed the awards judges, particularly his collaborations with the RSPB, the GWCT (Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust) and seed companies to improve seed mixtures so they provide more food for birds and insects through the winter's 'hungry gap'.
Bats, barn owls and harvest mice are all subject to specific monitoring and conservation projects on the farm, while overwintered stubbles are left to help birds like yellowhammer, skylarks and golden plover.
It is a complex environmental system for a 500-acre arable farm – but Mr Lyles said the history of the landscape compelled him to go the extra mile.
'When I try to explain to people what is here I start with the landscape, and who was here before,' he said. 'When I came here in the late 60s, that was the inspirational aspect, and to make sure nature was looked after.
'Because I had lived through DDT (the now-banned pesticide) I was concerned that although we thought chemicals were safe we learned in later years they were not. So the idea was to provide a refuge in each field so the insects in particular had somewhere to go to.
'Within our initial pollen and nectar plots, we planted some that were aesthetically pleasing, but with further research we discovered that although they were pretty they were not necessarily giving insects a long time to use them.
'Now we are trying to look at plants that produce pollen over a wide range of time from early spring to late summer, so they can be utilised by most, if not all, insects. The spin-off is that these insects then provide food for the mammals and birds.
'But our research now is about how and what to sow to fill the hungry gap from January to March, when food is at the low point. So we are now selecting plants that will hold on to their seeds for as long as possible. And we have been working with a big chemical company on using agricultural polymers to avoid premature seed dropping from the seed pods.'
Another of Mr Lyles' experimental successes was creating 'stepped margins' to maximise their ecological value.
'Being someone who always questions why I want to do something, I set about trying to improve or get more out of our margins,' he said. 'The idea is to have fine grasses in the outer section, then between two and four rows of higher grasses such as indigenous canary reed grass, followed by a floristically-enhanced section and then the two-metre prescribed margin required under the single farm payment.'
Elsewhere on the farm, organic matter is retained in the soil through a rotation of farmland manure and compost sourced from brown bin garden waste collections in west Norfolk.
Careful ploughing and strategic siting of beetle banks and buffer strips are used to prevent erosion which could leave the soil and nutrients at the bottom of the valleys, which were carved out by glacial moraine at the end of the last Ice Age.
But Mr Lyles said the 500-acre arable farm, growing wheat, barley, oilseed rape, and sugar beet had to be run as profitably as possible to help pay for the conservation measures – and he was concerned about how well-funded such schemes would be in the future after Britain leaves the EU, which currently pays for them.
'The arable side of the farm has to be completely commercial and practical, because much of the environmental work is inevitably subsidised by this area,' he said. 'HLS, as good as it is, sadly does not cover all the costs.
'I am in the HLS scheme until 2020. As to whether we will qualify for the Higher Tier of any new scheme after that, I don't know. I hope so. We have done so much up to this point, and if we have any conscience we have to lobby government to ensure that the hard work and conservation that has been carried out in the last few years continues for the next generation.'
Special projects
Monitoring projects are under way at Muckleton Farm to help foster a greater understanding of the life and feeding habits of animals including owls, hoverflies and harvest mice.
One of the most intriguing questions involves bats, said Mr Lyles.
'I was using some remote scouting cameras which have infrared on them and we were picking up strikes which we thought were insects going across the lens,' he said. 'We found out it was bats. We have now gone down an avenue of researching what species of bats are using our pollen and nectar plots, and in what numbers. The BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) have been very helpful in providing us with bat detectors to enable us to carry out this work. We are interested in finding out why bats that traditionally live near woodland would fly miles to get to these plots.'
Technology was also deployed to monitor the feeding habits of barn owls around their nesting sites, with satellite images used to look at crop densities
'Suffice to say, one of the most important crops was sugar beet, as this crop hosts many small mammals which the barn owls prey on,' said Mr Lyles. Sugar beet is also an important crop for pink-footed geese.
'Our geographical position makes us the first landfall for many migrating birds,' he said. 'We are also directly under the flight path for pink-footed geese from Holkham and Scolt Head roosts. They will arrive almost uncannily at the same time as the sugar beet factory opens. For the last 30-40 years they have been almost entirely dependent on the sugar beet crop to fulfil their migration pattern from September to January. The sugar beet regime is under pressure, which shows that as farmers come under pressure a lot of wildlife will come under pressure as well.'
Links to the Stone Age
Millennia of human habitation at the farm is encapsulated in an extraordinary collection of Stone Age relics unearthed from the land.
Farmer David Lyles has found axe heads, a grinding bowl, and a knapped flint cutting tool, with grooves worn into the edges where ancient fingers would have gripped it to work leather or cut meat.
There are also countless fossils kept at the farmhouse, including a dense piece of rock, clearly not of local origin, imprinted with bird footprints.
'The soil has got a story to tell,' said Mr Lyles. 'When I found that tool I just stood there for a while and wondered who was the last person to have used it.
'The undulation of the farm was caused by glacial moraine in the receding Ice Age, and going by the artefacts found here, it has had human habitation for a very long time. These are certainly neolithic, if not a great deal older.
'This continues to inspire me. Not only to look for what else might be hidden on the farm, but to ensure I leave something behind.
'I am trying to look at the continuity of wildlife from fossils all the way through to giving modern wildlife as much opportunity as we can on the land.'
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