Country diary: Birdsong fills the farm – and suddenly I know what it all is

It’s now been five years since we entered into a Countryside Stewardship environmental agreement on the farm, and fenced off a wide riparian strip alongside the River Lune. There were already quite a few trees in this patch – mainly oak, sycamore and rowan – but the livestock exclusion has allowed some to self-seed and regenerate. One of the rowans is now taller than me.

The farmhouse looks out over part of the strip, and we can hear a variety of birdsong coming from it. The gamechanger for recording what species are living there has been the Merlin bird ID app. I downloaded it last week and since then have been making recordings as I do my work on the farm.

This morning I recorded the birdsong as I walked across the field to let the hens out. I recognised the cuckoo and robin, but there were other songs I didn’t know. The app told me they were greenfinch, spotted flycatcher and hawfinch. I did another recording to make sure – the same species came up again. Across the day it picked up calls by willow warbler, blackcap, song thrush, peregrine, snipe, short-eared owl … All the while I’ve been trying to get my “ear in”, and can now recognise a wren, having heard it so many times this week.

I Googled the species and was amazed to find that many of them are red-listed birds, meaning they are of the highest conservation concern in the UK. I knew that the tree sparrows that inhabit our barn are red-listed – a visiting national park authority natural environment adviser told me – but I had no idea there were so many others. I imagine the app isn’t right every time, but it is making my summer mornings doing farm work more interesting, and it’s heartening to know that, with our wilded strip, we’re doing our bit.

The cows are now out of the barns where they have been living for the winter, lying in the sun and enjoying the warm weather as much as we are. Every couple of days we move them to fresh grass. It is hot so we all walk slowly, oystercatchers peeping overhead. That’s one bird call I don’t need the app for – it’s the sound of summer here.

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