Alex Learmont is the Reserve Warden and Outreach Officer at Shapwick Moor Nature Reserve with the Hawk and Owl Trust. Thibaud Sulzer is Community Engagement Officer for the Adapting the Levels Landscape Recovery Project.  Find out more about the project here.

TS: How did the Hawk and Owl Trust begin, and what are its aims?

AL: The Hawk and Owl Trust started in 1969, in response to the decline of peregrine falcons, but also other birds of prey as well, which was at the time due to the use of pesticides such as DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) and other chemicals. It was the catalyst for bringing bird of prey enthusiasts, conservationists and falconers together to figure out what to do about those declines. Initially the charity was known as the Hawk Trust but has since expanded to cover owls and all birds of prey species as is now the Hawk and Owl Trust.

There are four key aims of the charity: conserving and protecting birds of prey; managing habitats for birds of prey; raising awareness and educating people about birds of prey; and research. We have two of our own reserves: Shapwick Moor here in Somerset, and Sculthorpe Moor in Norfolk, which is also our headquarters. Both sites have similarities but they’re also very different and unique. These sites are our opportunity to showcase how to manage land for the benefit of birds of prey.

TS: What’s unique about the Somerset site?

AL: Being part of the Avalon Marshes and the Somerset Levels & Moors landscape is very unique in itself. There’s nowhere quite like it in terms of the biodiversity that we have, but also in terms of the challenges that we all face. Even within the Avalon Marshes, Shapwick Moor is quite different because we are on the edge of the wetter peatland on slightly higher ground. The reserve is also unusual in that it used to be part of an arable farm and has since been taken over by a conservation charity and managed for wildlife.

It’s this graduation from the wetter sites to the Polden Hills and the reserve’s agricultural past which gives us the opportunity to showcase different conservation management techniques. For us, really, it's all about hay meadows, which constitutes the main bulk of our reserve, about 146 acres in size. When taking a hay cut, we make sure large margins and buffer strips of rough grassland are left to provide habitat for field voles which in turn supports our birds of prey. The hay meadows also provide a nectar source for pollinators. 

Another important habitat we manage on the reserve are aquatic habitats such as ponds, scrapes and ditches which support a unique community of aquatic invertebrates, including real rarities such as the lesser silver diving beetle.

TS: Why did you sign up for the Adapting the Levels Landscape Recovery Project?

AL: A couple of reasons. The first is that the Hawk and Owl Trust is a small but very open-minded charity, who are not afraid of trying new approaches to wildlife conservation. It’s a great proactive, can-do attitude, and Landscape Recovery Schemes could offer a new way of managing the land for wildlife, so the charity was keen to be involved to find out what opportunities there are.

The second reason is that it’s appealing to the Hawk and Owl Trust to be part of a landscape-scale project. Birds of prey need big areas of land and different types of land at different times of year for nesting, breeding and wintering, and you can't conserve birds of prey on a single reserve. Looking at the landscape-scale approach, connectivity between sites, partnership working and the bigger picture just makes a lot of sense for our focus group of species. 

We’re at a discovery stage, we’re curious and interested to know what is on offer and out there but at the moment we don’t know what that will be, so it’s very much about learning at this stage of the project and we’re excited and looking forward to finding out what that means for us.

It’s worth mentioning that we’re a bit different to other landowners in the project, in that we’re a nature reserve. There is a lot of crossover between us and other landowners because of our agricultural past and how we still manage the land, but our focus is slightly different. For us it’s not about producing food and making a profit, but about the wildlife, the habitats and providing a green space for people to connect with birds of prey. Our track is a public footpath, we’ve got a relatively big car park and we’ve got a lot of different groups accessing our land, including dog walkers, people from local care homes, schools, cyclists and birdwatchers. So there is that community aspect which I suppose might not be such a feature for other landowners.

TS: What would you like your land to look like in the future?

AL: We have a 50-year vision for the reserve. In essence, it includes a more naturalised landscape that is less intensively managed, with fewer barriers, to wildlife. We would like to see large herbivores and other species like Beaver playing a role in the landscape. We would like habitats to be less fixed, allowing things to develop and change in response to natural processes and to climate change.

We would like parts of the site to be wetter, to better preserve our peaty areas and also benefit our wetland species, like reed bunting and warblers, dragonflies and amphibians.

From a birds of prey focus, we’re taking stock of what species we currently have and looking at what new ones we could tempt over. For example, if we've got more wetland features in the future, we could look to install an Osprey platform to provide nesting opportunities for this species. And if we’re thinking about the impacts of climate change, what will be important for birds of prey here is having a mixture of habitats available for example wetter low-lying areas, dryer open high-ground, shady woodland spots and hedgerows. This will give them -and other species groups – the best possible chance of adapting to increasingly unpredictable climatic conditions.