When I was down at Portland Bird Observatory in September I took the chance to photograph a family of Grey Partridge Perdix perdix that had turned up on the island. There’s little doubt that these particular individuals had been deliberately released - either for shooting or perhaps by someone with a more altruistic view that figured the habitat was right and Grey Partridge ‘ought’ to be on Portland - as the species has been seen on the island for years and ‘vagrants’ don’t normally travel in family groups!

I prefer (of course) to hope that the latter is the case, because though the Grey Partridge is also known as the English Partridge, (as well as the Hungarian Partridge, or Hun), it actually needs all the help it can get in the UK. Though the species has been successfully introduced to many parts of the world for shooting, including vast areas of North America, and is widespread and common throughout parts of its large range (the Grey Partridge is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) in Britain it has suffered huge declines and is now a ‘Red List Species’.

Once very common and widespread, it declined by over 50% between 1969-1990 to a current estimated 70,000-75,000 pairs (http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/g/greypartridge/index.aspx). Populations in some mixed farming areas seem stable, especially in the north of Britain, but in areas of historical low abundance such as intensive grasslands in the west, declines have sometimes exceeded 95%. The species is almost extinct in Northern Ireland.

The causes of the decline are - as one might expect in a region under so much intensive agriculture - related to changed farming practices, and include:

• Loss of nest sites (such as hedge bottoms) to farm intensification.
• Reduced food supplies and sources for chick food through the use of pesticides and herbicides, as well as the loss of winter stubble feeding grounds for overwintering birds.
• Vulnerability of nests to predators in farmland with poor cover.
• Nest destruction caused by early mowing and other farm operations.

These aren’t the best photos you’ll ever see of Grey Partridges, and possibly they’re not even of truly ‘wild’ birds (wild or not they were still very nervous!) - but if I explain that in twenty years of living and birding in what ought to be good habitat for the species I’ve barely seen more than a handful of Greys readers may perhaps allow me a little latitude when I post them…

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photographs copyright Charlie Moores 2009