The National Trust and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust (WWT) have recently formed a groundbreaking collaboration at Great Chalfield farm, seeing WWT commit to a 49-year lease that will enable us to manage the 140-hectares of arable, pasture and farm land for natures recovery. We hope to transform the surrounding farmland into a thriving ‘Learning Hub for Nature, Regenerative Farming and Green Finance’ where farmers and landholders can learn how to develop a range of nature-based solutions and access new markets for environmental services.

You can read more about this exciting collaboration here.

The importance of baseline data

To ensure our vision for the farm truly delivers the best for nature, we will be investing significant efforts into baseline surveys including habitat mapping, species and botanical surveys. Baseline datasets will enable us to monitor our impacts over time as we make more significant changes to the land, either through management or the development of nature-based projects, like wetlands, river improvements, grassland enhancements or new woodland.

Farmland birds, such as skylark, yellowhammer and lapwing, have declined by 61% since the 1970s, largely due to changes in farming practice and loss of suitable habitat. The regenerative farming and habitat enhancements planned on site are therefore really important to support these important bird populations. 

Using remote acoustic recorders

We are adopting traditional survey methods on the site, such as fixed recording routes and 10-minute ‘point counts’ at set locations, but we’re also testing out some ‘modern tech’ to increase our data collection.

Our Nature Recovery team have installed eight remote acoustic recorders across the farm, in a variety of habitats, which will record bird calls over a 4-hour window around sunrise and sunset each day – a timeframe that would take a group of enthusiastic ecologists much more time and effort!

Data collected can then be processed and analysed using BirdNET and with the expert guidance of ornithologist, Aurora Gonzalo-Tarado, identifying individual species based on their vocalisations.

“As part of my PhD, I’ve been using similar acoustic techniques in the Peruvian Amazon, where I assessed how effective BirdNET is in complex tropical environments and used acoustic data to explore how selective logging influences bird activity and diversity. The work at Great Chalfield brings these same methods into a farmland setting, helping us track how bird populations respond to conservation management here in the UK”

- Aurora Gonzalo-Tarodo, Project Officer and Ornithologist at Wiltshire and Swindon Biological Records Centre

Recordings will enable us to generate detailed species lists and allow us to explore patterns in bird activity; the data will help us understand not just which species are present, but how active they are throughout seasons, and any changes over time.

Whilst acoustic recorder data is often used to detect presence or absence, when combined and compared with manual counts, it can also give us a reliable picture of relative abundance and community composition. This integrated approach will provide a more complete baseline for the site and support future habitat management decisions.

How can you help with data collection in Wiltshire?

Wildlife records are incredibly important, whether they are of common species or a county rarity and Wiltshire and Swindon Biological Records Centre need your records to build an up-to-date picture of what’s happening to species in Wiltshire and Swindon. These records are brought together and made widely available for many different purposes such as development control and planning, land management and nature conservation work. Anyone can get involved in recording with a little bit of effort and thereby contribute directly to this work.

To find out more, visit: Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre

For information on how to submit a record, visit: Submit Records - Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre