The Return of the Grey Partridge – Roger Morgan-Grenville
We talk a lot about wildlife conservation, but what exactly does that look like? The Return of the Grey Partridge is a case study in saving the habitat for a bird ‘red-listed’ as being in danger of extinction within a generation.
The Return of the Grey Partridge is magnificent, important, and should be required reading for everybody interested in saving Britain’s nature.’ – John Lewis-Stempel
Join us for an evening with Roger Morgan-Granville talking about his new book ‘The Return of the Grey Partridge’. In 2003, the bird was a rarity in Sussex. Peppering Farm, part of the Arundel Estate on the South Downs, once a home to hundreds of birds, was down to just two breeding pairs.
Following the estate through the seasons, the book shows how the farm was gradually renatured: fields are divided up with hedgerows and trees, beetle banks are built across fields, the land is manured rather than fed with artificial fertilisers, and much of it is returned to pasture. There is a sense of this large estate coming back to life – still very much farmland, but with a rapid increase in wildlife and biodiversity. And the partridges return.
The Return of the Grey Partridge describes a renaturing process: a hopeful account of how modern farming can work in partnership with nature to restore not only birdlife but to benefit the whole ecosystem.
