RMG members and keepers visit RSPB Geltsdale
A number of Regional Moorland Group co-ordinators were recently able to visit a number of RSPB upland sites to gain an insight into the RSPB’s management plans and their hopes for their moorland sites. This was made possible thanks to the help of Paul Jackson, who recently joined the RSPB in a newly-created part-time role: conservation adviser for upland shooting estates.
We met Paul and a number of his RSPB colleagues at RSPB Geltsdale, which lies on the Cumbria/Northumberland border. It wasn’t the nicest of days weather-wise, but it was fascinating to find out about the charity’s plans for the 13,000 acre estate, and how they are managing it now.
The site is surrounded by grouse moors, something which the RSPB staff with us agreed almost certainly contributes to the wide array of birdlife they see on Geltsdale, and enables the RSPB to carry out less predator control themselves. They practice predator control on 1/5 of their land there, but without the use of snares. We were told that mustelid control is not carried out as there are few signs of mustelid presence at Geltsdale; in addition, another RSPB worker added that while fox predation on ground-nesting birds has been scientifically proven, the fact that there is no peer-reviewed science on mustelid-predation on these birds discourages the RSPB from carrying out mustelid control on the moors.
The heather is managed solely through cutting and some grazing; however the RSPB have removed many of the animals that grazed the moors before they took over in 2000. They have a number of cattle, which they are planning to move around using virtual fencing managed by ‘Nofence’ collars which emit both sounds and electrical pulses, and some Exmoor ponies from the Moorland Mousie Trust. Specific areas are managed for specific species; for example some areas are designed to encourage whinchats, while others are managed differently in a bid to encourage golden plover.
Many gamekeepers who are members of our various Regional Moorland Groups have to work alongside a number of other interested parties – whether that is tenant farmers or other estate businesses and interests. Some of the RMG members who visited Geltsdale expressed slight envy that the RSPB are able to do almost as they like in order to encourage the birdlife they desire – for example by removing much of the livestock. The RSPB do still have two farms on the estate but no common land, leaving them able to trial techniques that other moorland estates would not be able to replicate.
Equally, the RSPB do not practice burning on Geltsdale but instead have been cutting the heather where needed. Their aim is that some areas of the moor will not need to be cut again, since they hope that the introduction of cattle in low-densities will keep the mown strips shorn, leaving longer heather in other areas to create the mosaic effect that most upland states look to achieve. Again, this is a trial, so the long-term result is yet to be seen.
Other areas of Geltsdale, which can’t be reached with tractors to be cut, have been left to grow at their own free will; we were told that it is waist-high. What will this area attract, and is it a fire risk? One hopes that the moor is wet enough to cope (rewetting is being carried out at Geltsdale, and their blanket bog habitat seems healthy). But again, these are questions that are yet to be answered.
In the afternoon, a keeper who had been on the RSPB visit hosted a reciprocal visit on a neighbouring moor. This is a traditional moor which does practice rotational burning to create that mosaic effect in the heather; to encourage new shoots and also to act as firebreaks. We all had numerous questions to ask of one another, and we hope that both the RSPB and the visiting keepers were able to take away some useful information from one another. Both moors seemed to offer a wide array of habitats, healthy moorland, and good populations of moorland birds.