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NEYEDC improve and inform environmental decision making, conservation, land management and sustainable development in North and East Yorkshire through the collation, management, analysis and dissemination of biodiversity information.

The Natural History of Yorkshire in 100 Species

Explore the rich and diverse natural history of our region through the stories of 100 species, told by the people who know them best.

#98 Corn Bunting by Colin Slator

Meet Colin Slator, retired Countryside Ranger and founder and manager of High Batts Nature Reserve!

Colin has lived and worked in the countryside all his life, mostly in the Ripon area. Now in my mid-seventies, he has had a life-long interest in wildlife and enjoyed a happy and wildlife-filled life. Colin started out as a gamekeeper for about five years before several stints as a summer warden on the Farne Islands in Northumberland in the 70s. Having by then caught the wildlife travel bug, he needed cash and time to fund ventures abroad. So, he turned to agricultural contracting and eventually full-time arable farm work. For the last twenty years of his working life, he was a Countryside Ranger for Harrogate BC, managing around 18 wildlife sites, before being eventually drafted in to working two days a week in the Nidderdale AONB (now National Landscape). In the Dale he formed volunteer teams to undertake conservation work (and the wider Borough), organised wader surveys, talked to farmers about Stewardship schemes and formed working groups like the Wharfedale Wildlife Advisory Group, working with landowners, Yorkshire Water and local naturalists to improve sites for wildlife. He also established the High Batts Nature Reserve in 1975 (yes, 53 Years ago!) - he is still the site manager and Chairman of the Trustees of a group of 500 members. Colin still travels extensively throughout the World and within the UK on wildlife-based trips.

Corn Bunting, Andy Hay, RSPB

Colin’s chosen species is the Corn Bunting Miliaria calandra. ‘When I was a young lad growing up in Ripon (North Yorkshire) in the late 1950’s/early60’s, the belt of light agricultural land (grade 1 and 2) to the east, running parallel with the A1 motorway running north/south down towards Boroughbridge, was a favourite haunt of the Corn Bunting Miliaria calandra. The bird was regularly seen and heard singing its distinctive persistent ‘bunch of keys’ jangling song. Usually emitted from a prominent fence line, overhead wires or a prominent dead branch within a hedgerow. It would often sing in flight with dangling legs and uplifted wings. It was such a distinctive species singing from early spring sometimes into late summer that it became embedded in my young mind. Like the Lapwing, Yellowhammer and Grey Partridge the Corn Bunting was such a feature of the ‘local’ arable scene. A scene I thought was like it had always been and one, I assumed, would always be so. Unfortunately, how sadly wrong I was to be in my initial thinking.’

Occasionally placed in the ‘typical’ bunting genus Emberiza (Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting types) by some authorities, most now tend to put it into a separate genus for reasons of marked sexual dimorphism in size, but not in colour, the complete post-juvenile moult, differences in bill structure (curved cutting edge of mandibles) and, as alluded to above, its behaviour. Within Europe it is a species commonly found in open cropped agriculture land, especially around the Mediterranean basin. A high population is found in Spain. It breeds in suitable habitats across the western temperate and warm temperate zones of the western Palearctic, usually at low or moderate altitudes.

Within the British Isles there is no doubt that the Corn Bunting’s expansion of range into the country followed the forest clearances that opened up the countryside to allow the development of permanent cultivation. Most of the clearances were complete by the time of the Roman Conquest but the range of many bird species of open landscapes may have further increased with the huge increase in the area of arable land following agricultural changes from the late 18th century onwards. Although there is little direct evidence, it seems likely that the population and range of the Corn Bunting was at its height during the last half of the 19th century.

During the first BTO Breeding Bird Atlas of Britain and Ireland (published 1976) the (Corn) bunting was said to be ‘most widespread in the east from Yorkshire south to the Wash, and then across the country in a wide belt to Dorset’. J.R. Mather in the latest county avifauna (The Birds of Yorkshire 1986) showed the species to be spread throughout South Yorkshire through the central (York) plain onto the low-lying land sandwiched between the Tees and coast and the northern tip of the North Yorks Moors, but especially to the east on the Wolds down towards the Holderness. Nearly all, unsurprisingly, are districts of lowland arable farming, as opposed to inbye and upland stock farming. Mather gives figures for some large gatherings, especially roosting birds - a roost of 1,000 birds during January 1974 at Wath Ings was quite remarkable, with counts of up to 800 birds in winters thereafter. During the same period up to 850 were recorded feeding in winter stubbles in the Tadcaster area. But sadly, it would seem that this was the height of the species population, within Yorkshire, and no doubt beyond in the wider country. Stated in the County YNU Bird Report for 2017 the species was Red listed and a UK BAP bird with the following summary – ‘uncommon breeding resident, not on higher ground’. The BBS (Breeding Bird Survey index) only recorded the species in 13 of 305 1km squares surveyed. During that same year the largest county flock was 100 birds at Dunnington near York. Sadly, there were only four sites with birds in South Yorkshire, and migration at Spurn was described as ‘dire’. Colin noted 30 birds in his old patch at Marton-le-Moor, in October of that year. There was no doubt that the species, along with Yellowhammer and Lapwing, was declining rapidly on arable land, from this period to the present day. For one who enjoyed and had great early life pleasure from living among such wonderful birds it is such a sad time to endure.

Quoting from Mather again when he states that – ‘R. Chislett posed the question that pesticides may have been responsible’ for the decline of the Corn Bunting during the period of the 50s and 60s. How perceptive of Chislett! Young Corn Buntings in the nest require insects. The adults feed on a wide variety of seeds, both wild and cultivated. The majority of arable farmers aim for a weed free, insect free, fungal free and erect growing corn crop sown in the autumn. The whole gambit of arable farming practice is against the Corn Bunting, leaving no wonder as to why the population is in serious free fall. Farmers are still getting roughly the same price for corn now as they were getting around ten years ago - they cannot make it pay. So, they are unlikely to change how they manage their farm. And unfortunately, consecutive Governments cannot secure a good arable stewardship scheme to benefit these birds in both the long and short term.

Unfortunately, the Corn Bunting is at the tip of an iceberg of farmland bird species that are being lost from the British countryside. Despite their decline having stabilised somewhat in the year 2000, there appear to be no strong signs of recovery, and populations are more fragmented than ever.

Recording and monitoring

Records of Corn Bunting can be submitted to the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), your local LERC, or the RSPB.

Further information and acknowledgements

Advice for farmers on the Corn Bunting and farming sympathetically for this species can be found here. NEYEDC would like to thank Colin for his time and expertise in helping to create this blog.

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