Richard Negus caught up with Jamie Blackett to talk about the new campaigning organisation he has set up to help Britain’s ground nesting birds. They talk about some of the problems faced by ground nesting species, the changes which Jamie has seen on his own farm, and what Ground Cry intends to do to identify the gaps in current research, speak honestly about challenges, and support practical, evidence-led solutions.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.You can contact us by email on: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Edited and Produced by Amy Green.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Richard Negus: Right, look, we're back at the game fair again on Saturday and we're once again in the heat trap that is the back of the GWCT stand. And I'm very pleased to say that joining me now is a good pal of mine, Jamie Blackett, who has just started a new organisation called Ground Cry. Now Jamie, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and then why Ground Cry?
Jamie Blackett: Well, Richard, yeah, thanks for having me here. And I farm in Dumfriesshire, a peninsula sticking out into the Solway Firth, which is, for those who know it, is bird central, really. Every curlew in Europe probably knows our foreshore passes through it on the migrations as do the geese. And we're blessed with a really good biodiversity, really lots of different birds. And that's important to me as a farmer. I'm a dairy farmer primarily. And the frustration for me is that over the last 25 years, I've done lots of conservation measures and most of them seem to work really. You plant a hedge And as and I'm now actually at the stage of laying the hedges and you get yellow hammers and all the finches and whatever, you put up a length of dry stone wall, you get more wrens and wagtails and whatever, and you put up an owl box and you get a barn owl who eats the mice coming out of the dry stone wall and the voles coming out of the hedge and whatever. But where I'm very conscious we are failing is with our ground nesting birds. I just can't seem to get it to work. You know, we dig wader scrapes and the lapwings come along and they start to try to nest and then something happens and then it's all a disaster. We put in, you know, meadows that attract the larks and, you know, we've had a little bit of success, but really it should be, the lark song should be deafening really in the spring instead of a little one here and there. And we all know the reasons for that, what I call the elephants in the room, the predators that we're not allowed to deal with, the huge spike in meso predators that's just getting worse, the badgers, the gulls. the problems with disturbance and that we have right to roam in Scotland and I have no difficulty with that. I grew up there and I'm actually quite proud that we've never had this sort of law of trespass in Scotland. They have a south of the border. But it's got much harder to actually channel people where you want them to go, away from ground nesting birds, people have got really sort of \*\*\*\* about it now. And the law doesn't allow you to put up signs saying, crowd nesting birds, please go that way. People make a point of ignoring them, they throw the signs into the ditches and whatever. And it's just getting harder. And I thought, right, you know, there's no point in approaching the RSPB because they're not interested in all this sort of stuff. And there doesn't seem to be, the GWCT, we're behind that fantastic organisation, but they're there to do research. They're not there to change public opinion or lobby politicians. So I thought, right, well, we will start an organisation, a campaign really. I mean, it's a campaigning organisation. I don't really want to become an organisation that just exists in order to exist and sells Christmas cards and calendars and whatever. I'm not pointing any fingers, but we all know what I'm talking about. I want to have a campaign. The response has been fantastic. We're going to have a panel of advisors with a wealth of experience, people like Colin Strang Steel, former chairman of Songbird Survival, Ian Coghill, former chairman of GWCT. And we're going to get lots of heavyweight communicators who are going to be our ambassadors. That's been a fantastic response. And I'm going to wait for them. We're going to dribble them out. They're going to announce themselves. But there are going to be some real heavyweight communicators who are going to do the missionary work. And I just realised that nothing's going to change unless public opinion changes.
Richard Negus: And that public opinion, Jamie, is the fact that people are squeamish about predator control.
Jamie Blackett: I think there is that. And I think, you know, I mean, take badgers. I mean, it's become very politicised. I mean, if you If one of these celebrity environmentalists fell over and bumped his head and woke up with complete amnesia, with his whole memory wiped, and looked at things completely objectively with fresh eyes, he would probably conclude that we need to do something about the badgers. But as it is, they won't do that because of all the culture wars and what psychologists call reinforcing behaviour. Once people have sort of nailed their colours to a particular mask, it's very difficult for them to change their opinion. And so, you know, we've got a whole generation of young people who have grown up listening to certain opinion formers, and they would find it very difficult to countenance reducing the density of badgers from, what is it, 10 per square kilometre or something down to the average in a normally functioning ecosystem with apex predators like wolves and bears of about 0.1 badger per hectare. And you wouldn't necessarily need to do it by lethal methods. I mean, you know, they're talking about catching up lots of badgers and vaccinating them with this TB vaccine, aren't they? Well, why don't they just sterilize them at the same time? It's a perfectly simple veterinary procedure, happens in veterinary practices and on farms the whole time, thousands of times a day. You know, if you just spayed all of the badger sows that you're able to catch up or whatever, or maybe use gene therapy. the technology now exists to inject a badger with a gene that will mean that they only have offspring of either one sex or the other forevermore or not forevermore. You can actually, it's so clever, you can do it for two or three generations. So you'd suppress a population. That way. Okay.
Richard Negus: Because that's all you're after is suppression, I take it. I mean, you're a dairy farmer, so you've also got that spectre of TB over you.
Jamie Blackett: Well, it's terrifying. I mean, Scotland is in theory TB free, but there is the occasional herd breakdown when some idiot buys in some cattle from a TB hotspot. add it to this sort of flare up, but they've always been able to contain it. But there are so many badgers now that if it did get loose, it would be very, very hard to.
Richard Negus: Throw it again. Have you noticed on your own farm that increase in badger numbers? Because I have to say, I notice when I'm doing hedgerow management plans is the sheer number of sets now I'm seeing because we return to the same place year after year after year. And we can see that in Suffolk. And there you are on the far other end of the country. And you're seeing that. So you've seen that yourself, that it's become an unsustainable population.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah, I think there is. And I think that helped by the fact that the fox population, since we stopped hunting, is pretty much extirpated in our part of the world because of the, you know, the technology of the night sites and whatever, and the fact that you are allowed to shoot them. But I mean, I think actually in another generation, we might talk about needing to protect foxes in rural areas. And I guess the badger, no longer has that competition. And farming subsidizes badgers quite a lot. I mean, they kind of They're in the cattle sheds at night, so rootling about and finding stuff to eat and think farming needs to own the problem a bit more, perhaps, and do more to keep them out. And they're omnivorous, so of course they're going to, you know, they're the top of the food chain, but they'll also eat just about anything. So, you know, there is no stopping them. And I just, wonder, how long it's going to go on for. But I can't go on forever, surely, because, the future generations are going to say, what on earth were they thinking? we've got all these badgers and it's a zero-sum game. You know, we've got no hedgehogs, no ground nesting birds, da, da, da. We're all familiar with the arguments. So at some point, there has to be this sort of emperor's clothes moment when everybody turns around and says, look, you know what? we're going to have to change things here. I mean, it is pretty unique in Europe. I think that, it's a British problem. The Germans still hunt badgers, I think, don't they?
Richard Negus: Yes, they do.
Jamie Blackett: And I think, you know, there's, as I say, there's going to have to be a sudden sea change. And so I'm hoping that Ground Cry, which will be probably lots of old people who are never going to have to worry about standing for Parliament or getting a job or keeping in with the government, so civil servants. We're not part of the client state and we can tell it as it is. And so that's what we're going to do. And we're going to change public opinion and bring forward that that emperor's clothes moment.
Richard Negus: Do you think one of the challenges is, I mean, I remember as a child, one of my childhood heroes was a gamekeeper and him taking me out badger watching. And that was back in the days when badgers were rare enough that going and sitting up and letting dusk settle and watching a set come to life was a fascinating thing and it was quite a rarity. And this was a gamekeeper who took me out to see this. Do you think, I mean, I can remember watching it, and I thought, they're amazing, beautiful creatures. Just like when you watch an otter and you think, what a fantastic creature he is. They are charismatic species. When I look at, I suppose, a lapwing, you have to look quite hard until you realise their wonder and what an amazing creature they are. Do you think almost one of the biggest challenges is the fact that most of these ground nesting birds are either quite dowdy, which is a defence mechanism, say, with a curlew or stone curlew down in our neck of the woods. So you don't even see them, really. Or otherwise, they're a bird, you know, big deal is a bird. Do you think just that sheer charisma of some of these species like badgers, like otters, that they're just they're just too pretty for people to get past that as a stumbling wall.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah, I suppose there is this sort of cuddliness to them in the public mind. But I mean, one of the problems, I mean, actually ground nesting birds are incredibly charismatic. But so few people now have actually, as I have, and you probably have witnessed a \*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\* lek, which is, you know, really one of the the wonders of nature. Or actually that because of the sort of shifting baseline that we've had, have experienced the magic of lapwings displaying in the spring and curlews displaying.
Richard Negus: So do you think that's part of your job as well is to introduce the public, the wider public to farms like yours. I've never actually been up to your farm. I've known you for quite a long while, but I've never been up to your farm because if I go north of Norfolk, my ears go pop, as you well know. But is it something that you also think that if you're going to go and explain the story of why perhaps some of the decisions that you're after by government, quite drastic, they would see them as, do you think it's also part of your job is to go and basically be a bit of a PR agent for the curlew, for the lapwing, for the golden plover, for the black grouse, etc.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah, I think definitely. And the ground cry, we've just started now really with our sort of social media campaign, which is sort of building very slowly, but we'll be putting a lot of stuff. I put one of the first things I put up actually was, I've just been up in the Western Isles and I went to Iona to play golf.
Richard Negus: No pilgrimage for you, golf.
Jamie Blackett: We did do a bit of a pilgrimage to St. Columbus Monastery as well. There were these corn crakes calling in a hay meadow. And it's years since I've heard a corn crake. Of course, now you can whip your phone out and record it. And I put that recording up there and I said, you know, just stop and listen to the magic of the corn crake. And of course, that they were everywhere on the mainland. Now they're just on an island where, there are otters, but... And occasionally there's a mink, but the islanders deal with that pretty quickly. But there aren't any badgers. And I didn't actually see many crows either. You know, it wouldn't be wonderful if we were able to get corn crates back on the mainland. But at the moment, really, you're talking about, you know, the problem is a lot of people don't know these birds because you either have to go to an actual island separated by sea or a sort of artificial island where there's a badger fence. And I think a lot of the problem, a lot of the complacency is that some of these organisations are actually quite pleased that the only place you can see some of these birds is on their reserves where they've spent their millions and millions on erecting a badger fence. And they're secretly using some of their money to do lots of predator control, which they don't talk about.
Richard Negus: It's very interesting, actually, because I mean, the RSPB, there's two fantastic reserves near to me. One is at Minsmere, which they use as their flagship. And as you say, that is completely ring-fenced by predator fence. and it's an artificial population. What is interesting is over at Lakenheath Fen where they recreated a reed bed on what was actually a carrot farm, there is not ring fenced and they are quite overt about the fact that predator control is part of their regime because they have cranes there. I mean they have a very high population of bitterns too but they've managed to find a bird which is actually more charismatic than the the foxes that they are shooting. So therefore as a tick in the box, which is why slightly when I asked you that question, and this might be a challenge because old buffers like us are actually pretty useless at making films of stuff. I mean, I've seen your wonderful films when you go and talk to camera and half the time you've got it upside down when you first start up. The words are fantastic, but you've shot your feet or something. So one of the things that we might want to go and do is we almost need some younger folk, possibly, who do know what this phone thing is in our hands, which, and it's not just for making phone calls or sending rude WhatsApp messages to old army buddies, is that we actually could do with some people going and having some footage of, as you say, because we want to, and I say we because you called me to talk to me about this and what I thought of it, and I thought it was an excellent idea. And we almost need some people who are adept at filming stuff so that we can show that majesty of a black grouse lek. Because you see it every day, where farming where you do. And I think that's probably it. And it's a credit to you that you want more people to be able to see that.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah. it's God, it's so difficult because you want them to see it, but on the other hand, you don't want them to disturb the birds. But I'm actually going to see if I can cobble together some money to put up some hides and encourage people to actually put up some hides on stilts and things. Because believe it or not, we've got an unconfirmed sighting of it or hearing of a bittern.
Richard Negus: Oh, really?
Jamie Blackett: With us.
Richard Negus: Fantastic.
Jamie Blackett: This spring.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Jamie Blackett: Unfortunately, it wasn't me. It was some bird who was at the top end of our farm where we have got reed beds all along a bird because I've fenced them, fenced it off years ago. And now they're really quite extensive reed beds. And you might have been hearing something else or I don't know.
Richard Negus: Just like a moo.
Jamie Blackett: But I mean, but I what I did see not long ago was a white stork. OK, yeah, in our fields that was obviously lost trying to find Nep or somewhere and pitched up.
Richard Negus: You're on a major migratory route. And also, this is one thing I wanted to ask you while I've got you here. You've changed your dairying system, haven't you, quite dramatically. Are you seeing I know you've written about how the fact that it's a more sustainable method of farming for you. Have you seen an upturn in wildlife since you changed that system as well?
Jamie Blackett: Oh, definitely. Absolutely, 100%. I mean, a few years ago, I would have agreed with the RSPB mantra about the starling being a threatened farmland bird that we hardly ever see now. Not anymore. We've got some hundreds and thousands probably of starlings.
Richard Negus: And why have they come back?
Jamie Blackett: It must be because of the soil health, I think. They're finding stuff to eat and then all the little bugs and beasties and insects in the soil and also. You used to lift a stone, which I do fairly frequently because we've always got a dry stone wall on the go. And there might have been a slug underneath it years ago, but usually there would be nothing. And now you're almost guaranteed to have loads of beetles running around.
Richard Negus: So that's something that you would say, because you said we're focused understandably on predator control frequently things that we aren't allowed to control, either lethally or as you suggest, using slightly more sort of less permanent means. You call it the four-legged stool, don't you?
Jamie Blackett: Well, I do. I mean, it started slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it was it was I was having a real trouble. I mean, the access officer actually of Dumfries and Galloway Council Access Officer was being incredibly helpful, but the certain individuals within the village that adjoins us were just being bloody-minded about walking, wherever they want it. And I was trying to foster this sort of, there were some lapwings nesting in this field and the people were just walking within it. I was trying to channel them and the access officer was actually agreed with me. He said, yes, landowner here is doing his best. He's trying to divert a footpath and I'm supporting it. But they were having nothing on it. So I thought, well, you know, we've got to somehow get into the public consciousness, that disturbance is a problem. And so I started talking about a four-legged stool. we're all familiar with a three-legged stool, but the fourth leg is minimizing disturbance in the spring. And of course, that chimes at the moment, we've got Guy Shrubsole and his merry man, you know, right to roam and in England. And I've written various articles from the Telegraph pointing out the anomaly that actually Scotland is a country with no law of trespass, where landowners have been encouraged to put in footpaths and people, with a few exceptions, have been really good about using footpaths. England, on the other hand, is a country with the widest network of footpaths anywhere in the world, but people won't use them. They want to walk off piste.
Richard Negus: Do you think in Scotland I mean, it's a small nation. You're of what, 5.5, 5.8 million people. Do you think that actually, when I lived in Edinburgh, there seemed to be a slightly closer association. More people you would see would go out hill walk. There would be more people who would... Do you think that the people of Scotland, as I saw in Wales, they had a greater affinity and understanding of Oh, definitely.
Jamie Blackett: I mean, in any city in Scotland, you only have to look up and you can see the hills, particularly in Edinburgh, actually not so much in Glasgow, but the population is much closer to the land. I think perhaps that's why it works to a certain extent, less people. broadly speaking, a greater sympathy for what farmers are trying to do in Scotland that there is south of the border where there is a far more metropolitan population.
Richard Negus: Left field question. You very bravely and quite madly stood in an election alongside George Galloway. What on earth is going wrong with the political system at the moment? And can you see any good coming out of it for farming and the environment with all this utter bonkersness that's going on in the moment?
Jamie Blackett: Well, it is bonkers and I feel, I really feel for my fellow farmers in England, because in Scotland we're actually, I never thought I would say this, but I mean, the nationalist government is corrupt as we've seen and inept. But they are, Because the SNP relies on winning quite a lot of rural seats, genuinely rural seats, they probably actually have a slightly more sympathetic farming policy. We're still getting a single farm payment in Scotland, for example, which they're not in England. But in England, I mean, arable farmers are just giving up and selling their farms, record numbers of farm sales at the moment, particularly arable farms. And it seems to be just, we've learned nothing from history. It's sort of back to the 30s when there were whole swathes of East Anglia where there were negative rents. There were landowners paying tenants to farm their land just to keep it in some sort of good order, stop it reverting to scrub. And I can really see that we're heading in that direction if something doesn't happen. And you mentioned my time with George Galloway and I, we disagreed on lots of things, obviously, because we're at different ends of the political spectrum. But what we did agree was that the SNP were completely out of control, not being held to account. And journalists were afraid to ask the important questions. And we thought we would go around lobbing large stones into ponds and create a bit of a stir and change the narrative about the SNP. And I think we did succeed in doing that because, I mean, obviously, Nicola Sturgeon brought her nemesis completely on herself. But even before that was happening, people, journalists and actually politicians of the mainstream parties were shamed by us into actually being a bit braver. I'm hoping that Ground Cry, I haven't actually spoken to George about it, he's not much of a birder and I don't think he'll be joining our merry men, but I probably will do a podcast with him on it. But I'm hoping that we will get similar sorts of people who are not afraid to speak truth to power, as they say, to point out the elephants in the room and to bring about this change of public opinion that we so badly need. about conservation and saving our ground nesting birds. As we speak, the Cairngorms are on fire, the village of Nethy Bridge is being evacuated, Peak District is on fire, Slieve something or other in Ireland is on fire. You know, the changing the sort of metaphor, the chickens are coming home to roost. And we actually need to be talking about this stuff and not faffing around with sort of toeing the party line on, we need to actually demand legislation that will hold landowners to account if they allow the fuel load to get to a point where they cause a complete biodiversity wipeout, as is happening on, guess what, lots of RSPB reserved.
Richard Negus: Yeah. Okay. So if you we were to our listeners were first port of call, you would like them to visit to learn more about Ground Cry, although we've done a fairly deep dive into it. Yeah.
Jamie Blackett: Google it. does what it says. Google it. You'll find us on Instagram, on Facebook, which we'll get on Twitter shortly. I haven't managed to sort that out yet. There's a website where we're putting a few articles on all the rest of it. And if we could get lots of followers, then we're in a position then to start doing the petitions, the demands for judicial reviews, all that kind of stuff. And we can actually, and what I'm going to do is sort of bang out a bit of a, speak to this sort of panel of advisors, of whom you'll be one, Richard, I hope. and get a sort of manifesto together for what we want for ground nesting birds, dealing with the predators and the disturbance and the wildfires and all the problems that we all know exist and that people in the RSPB privately will acknowledge, but aren't brave enough to say it publicly. But if they've got, you know, some pretty heavyweight people saying it regularly on social media and on the radio interviews and debates and things. Hopefully they will be shamed into changing their position publicly and we will actually start to get somewhere.
Richard Negus: Superb. Jamie Blackett, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been lovely to talk to you.
Jamie Blackett: Thank you, Richard. Thank you.
Richard Negus: Right, look, we're back at the game fair again on Saturday and we're once again in the heat trap that is the back of the GWCT stand. And I'm very pleased to say that joining me now is a good pal of mine, Jamie Blackett, who has just started a new organisation called Ground Cry. Now Jamie, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and then why Ground Cry?
Jamie Blackett: Well, Richard, yeah, thanks for having me here. And I farm in Dumfriesshire, a peninsula sticking out into the Solway Firth, which is, for those who know it, is bird central, really. Every curlew in Europe probably knows our foreshore passes through it on the migrations as do the geese. And we're blessed with a really good biodiversity, really lots of different birds. And that's important to me as a farmer. I'm a dairy farmer primarily. And the frustration for me is that over the last 25 years, I've done lots of conservation measures and most of them seem to work really. You plant a hedge And as and I'm now actually at the stage of laying the hedges and you get yellow hammers and all the finches and whatever, you put up a length of dry stone wall, you get more wrens and wagtails and whatever, and you put up an owl box and you get a barn owl who eats the mice coming out of the dry stone wall and the voles coming out of the hedge and whatever. But where I'm very conscious we are failing is with our ground nesting birds. I just can't seem to get it to work. You know, we dig wader scrapes and the lapwings come along and they start to try to nest and then something happens and then it's all a disaster. We put in, you know, meadows that attract the larks and, you know, we've had a little bit of success, but really it should be, the lark song should be deafening really in the spring instead of a little one here and there. And we all know the reasons for that, what I call the elephants in the room, the predators that we're not allowed to deal with, the huge spike in meso predators that's just getting worse, the badgers, the gulls. the problems with disturbance and that we have right to roam in Scotland and I have no difficulty with that. I grew up there and I'm actually quite proud that we've never had this sort of law of trespass in Scotland. They have a south of the border. But it's got much harder to actually channel people where you want them to go, away from ground nesting birds, people have got really sort of \*\*\*\* about it now. And the law doesn't allow you to put up signs saying, crowd nesting birds, please go that way. People make a point of ignoring them, they throw the signs into the ditches and whatever. And it's just getting harder. And I thought, right, you know, there's no point in approaching the RSPB because they're not interested in all this sort of stuff. And there doesn't seem to be, the GWCT, we're behind that fantastic organisation, but they're there to do research. They're not there to change public opinion or lobby politicians. So I thought, right, well, we will start an organisation, a campaign really. I mean, it's a campaigning organisation. I don't really want to become an organisation that just exists in order to exist and sells Christmas cards and calendars and whatever. I'm not pointing any fingers, but we all know what I'm talking about. I want to have a campaign. The response has been fantastic. We're going to have a panel of advisors with a wealth of experience, people like Colin Strang Steel, former chairman of Songbird Survival, Ian Coghill, former chairman of GWCT. And we're going to get lots of heavyweight communicators who are going to be our ambassadors. That's been a fantastic response. And I'm going to wait for them. We're going to dribble them out. They're going to announce themselves. But there are going to be some real heavyweight communicators who are going to do the missionary work. And I just realised that nothing's going to change unless public opinion changes.
Richard Negus: And that public opinion, Jamie, is the fact that people are squeamish about predator control.
Jamie Blackett: I think there is that. And I think, you know, I mean, take badgers. I mean, it's become very politicised. I mean, if you If one of these celebrity environmentalists fell over and bumped his head and woke up with complete amnesia, with his whole memory wiped, and looked at things completely objectively with fresh eyes, he would probably conclude that we need to do something about the badgers. But as it is, they won't do that because of all the culture wars and what psychologists call reinforcing behaviour. Once people have sort of nailed their colours to a particular mask, it's very difficult for them to change their opinion. And so, you know, we've got a whole generation of young people who have grown up listening to certain opinion formers, and they would find it very difficult to countenance reducing the density of badgers from, what is it, 10 per square kilometre or something down to the average in a normally functioning ecosystem with apex predators like wolves and bears of about 0.1 badger per hectare. And you wouldn't necessarily need to do it by lethal methods. I mean, you know, they're talking about catching up lots of badgers and vaccinating them with this TB vaccine, aren't they? Well, why don't they just sterilize them at the same time? It's a perfectly simple veterinary procedure, happens in veterinary practices and on farms the whole time, thousands of times a day. You know, if you just spayed all of the badger sows that you're able to catch up or whatever, or maybe use gene therapy. the technology now exists to inject a badger with a gene that will mean that they only have offspring of either one sex or the other forevermore or not forevermore. You can actually, it's so clever, you can do it for two or three generations. So you'd suppress a population. That way. Okay.
Richard Negus: Because that's all you're after is suppression, I take it. I mean, you're a dairy farmer, so you've also got that spectre of TB over you.
Jamie Blackett: Well, it's terrifying. I mean, Scotland is in theory TB free, but there is the occasional herd breakdown when some idiot buys in some cattle from a TB hotspot. add it to this sort of flare up, but they've always been able to contain it. But there are so many badgers now that if it did get loose, it would be very, very hard to.
Richard Negus: Throw it again. Have you noticed on your own farm that increase in badger numbers? Because I have to say, I notice when I'm doing hedgerow management plans is the sheer number of sets now I'm seeing because we return to the same place year after year after year. And we can see that in Suffolk. And there you are on the far other end of the country. And you're seeing that. So you've seen that yourself, that it's become an unsustainable population.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah, I think there is. And I think that helped by the fact that the fox population, since we stopped hunting, is pretty much extirpated in our part of the world because of the, you know, the technology of the night sites and whatever, and the fact that you are allowed to shoot them. But I mean, I think actually in another generation, we might talk about needing to protect foxes in rural areas. And I guess the badger, no longer has that competition. And farming subsidizes badgers quite a lot. I mean, they kind of They're in the cattle sheds at night, so rootling about and finding stuff to eat and think farming needs to own the problem a bit more, perhaps, and do more to keep them out. And they're omnivorous, so of course they're going to, you know, they're the top of the food chain, but they'll also eat just about anything. So, you know, there is no stopping them. And I just, wonder, how long it's going to go on for. But I can't go on forever, surely, because, the future generations are going to say, what on earth were they thinking? we've got all these badgers and it's a zero-sum game. You know, we've got no hedgehogs, no ground nesting birds, da, da, da. We're all familiar with the arguments. So at some point, there has to be this sort of emperor's clothes moment when everybody turns around and says, look, you know what? we're going to have to change things here. I mean, it is pretty unique in Europe. I think that, it's a British problem. The Germans still hunt badgers, I think, don't they?
Richard Negus: Yes, they do.
Jamie Blackett: And I think, you know, there's, as I say, there's going to have to be a sudden sea change. And so I'm hoping that Ground Cry, which will be probably lots of old people who are never going to have to worry about standing for Parliament or getting a job or keeping in with the government, so civil servants. We're not part of the client state and we can tell it as it is. And so that's what we're going to do. And we're going to change public opinion and bring forward that that emperor's clothes moment.
Richard Negus: Do you think one of the challenges is, I mean, I remember as a child, one of my childhood heroes was a gamekeeper and him taking me out badger watching. And that was back in the days when badgers were rare enough that going and sitting up and letting dusk settle and watching a set come to life was a fascinating thing and it was quite a rarity. And this was a gamekeeper who took me out to see this. Do you think, I mean, I can remember watching it, and I thought, they're amazing, beautiful creatures. Just like when you watch an otter and you think, what a fantastic creature he is. They are charismatic species. When I look at, I suppose, a lapwing, you have to look quite hard until you realise their wonder and what an amazing creature they are. Do you think almost one of the biggest challenges is the fact that most of these ground nesting birds are either quite dowdy, which is a defence mechanism, say, with a curlew or stone curlew down in our neck of the woods. So you don't even see them, really. Or otherwise, they're a bird, you know, big deal is a bird. Do you think just that sheer charisma of some of these species like badgers, like otters, that they're just they're just too pretty for people to get past that as a stumbling wall.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah, I suppose there is this sort of cuddliness to them in the public mind. But I mean, one of the problems, I mean, actually ground nesting birds are incredibly charismatic. But so few people now have actually, as I have, and you probably have witnessed a \*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\* lek, which is, you know, really one of the the wonders of nature. Or actually that because of the sort of shifting baseline that we've had, have experienced the magic of lapwings displaying in the spring and curlews displaying.
Richard Negus: So do you think that's part of your job as well is to introduce the public, the wider public to farms like yours. I've never actually been up to your farm. I've known you for quite a long while, but I've never been up to your farm because if I go north of Norfolk, my ears go pop, as you well know. But is it something that you also think that if you're going to go and explain the story of why perhaps some of the decisions that you're after by government, quite drastic, they would see them as, do you think it's also part of your job is to go and basically be a bit of a PR agent for the curlew, for the lapwing, for the golden plover, for the black grouse, etc.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah, I think definitely. And the ground cry, we've just started now really with our sort of social media campaign, which is sort of building very slowly, but we'll be putting a lot of stuff. I put one of the first things I put up actually was, I've just been up in the Western Isles and I went to Iona to play golf.
Richard Negus: No pilgrimage for you, golf.
Jamie Blackett: We did do a bit of a pilgrimage to St. Columbus Monastery as well. There were these corn crakes calling in a hay meadow. And it's years since I've heard a corn crake. Of course, now you can whip your phone out and record it. And I put that recording up there and I said, you know, just stop and listen to the magic of the corn crake. And of course, that they were everywhere on the mainland. Now they're just on an island where, there are otters, but... And occasionally there's a mink, but the islanders deal with that pretty quickly. But there aren't any badgers. And I didn't actually see many crows either. You know, it wouldn't be wonderful if we were able to get corn crates back on the mainland. But at the moment, really, you're talking about, you know, the problem is a lot of people don't know these birds because you either have to go to an actual island separated by sea or a sort of artificial island where there's a badger fence. And I think a lot of the problem, a lot of the complacency is that some of these organisations are actually quite pleased that the only place you can see some of these birds is on their reserves where they've spent their millions and millions on erecting a badger fence. And they're secretly using some of their money to do lots of predator control, which they don't talk about.
Richard Negus: It's very interesting, actually, because I mean, the RSPB, there's two fantastic reserves near to me. One is at Minsmere, which they use as their flagship. And as you say, that is completely ring-fenced by predator fence. and it's an artificial population. What is interesting is over at Lakenheath Fen where they recreated a reed bed on what was actually a carrot farm, there is not ring fenced and they are quite overt about the fact that predator control is part of their regime because they have cranes there. I mean they have a very high population of bitterns too but they've managed to find a bird which is actually more charismatic than the the foxes that they are shooting. So therefore as a tick in the box, which is why slightly when I asked you that question, and this might be a challenge because old buffers like us are actually pretty useless at making films of stuff. I mean, I've seen your wonderful films when you go and talk to camera and half the time you've got it upside down when you first start up. The words are fantastic, but you've shot your feet or something. So one of the things that we might want to go and do is we almost need some younger folk, possibly, who do know what this phone thing is in our hands, which, and it's not just for making phone calls or sending rude WhatsApp messages to old army buddies, is that we actually could do with some people going and having some footage of, as you say, because we want to, and I say we because you called me to talk to me about this and what I thought of it, and I thought it was an excellent idea. And we almost need some people who are adept at filming stuff so that we can show that majesty of a black grouse lek. Because you see it every day, where farming where you do. And I think that's probably it. And it's a credit to you that you want more people to be able to see that.
Jamie Blackett: Yeah. it's God, it's so difficult because you want them to see it, but on the other hand, you don't want them to disturb the birds. But I'm actually going to see if I can cobble together some money to put up some hides and encourage people to actually put up some hides on stilts and things. Because believe it or not, we've got an unconfirmed sighting of it or hearing of a bittern.
Richard Negus: Oh, really?
Jamie Blackett: With us.
Richard Negus: Fantastic.
Jamie Blackett: This spring.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Jamie Blackett: Unfortunately, it wasn't me. It was some bird who was at the top end of our farm where we have got reed beds all along a bird because I've fenced them, fenced it off years ago. And now they're really quite extensive reed beds. And you might have been hearing something else or I don't know.
Richard Negus: Just like a moo.
Jamie Blackett: But I mean, but I what I did see not long ago was a white stork. OK, yeah, in our fields that was obviously lost trying to find Nep or somewhere and pitched up.
Richard Negus: You're on a major migratory route. And also, this is one thing I wanted to ask you while I've got you here. You've changed your dairying system, haven't you, quite dramatically. Are you seeing I know you've written about how the fact that it's a more sustainable method of farming for you. Have you seen an upturn in wildlife since you changed that system as well?
Jamie Blackett: Oh, definitely. Absolutely, 100%. I mean, a few years ago, I would have agreed with the RSPB mantra about the starling being a threatened farmland bird that we hardly ever see now. Not anymore. We've got some hundreds and thousands probably of starlings.
Richard Negus: And why have they come back?
Jamie Blackett: It must be because of the soil health, I think. They're finding stuff to eat and then all the little bugs and beasties and insects in the soil and also. You used to lift a stone, which I do fairly frequently because we've always got a dry stone wall on the go. And there might have been a slug underneath it years ago, but usually there would be nothing. And now you're almost guaranteed to have loads of beetles running around.
Richard Negus: So that's something that you would say, because you said we're focused understandably on predator control frequently things that we aren't allowed to control, either lethally or as you suggest, using slightly more sort of less permanent means. You call it the four-legged stool, don't you?
Jamie Blackett: Well, I do. I mean, it started slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it was it was I was having a real trouble. I mean, the access officer actually of Dumfries and Galloway Council Access Officer was being incredibly helpful, but the certain individuals within the village that adjoins us were just being bloody-minded about walking, wherever they want it. And I was trying to foster this sort of, there were some lapwings nesting in this field and the people were just walking within it. I was trying to channel them and the access officer was actually agreed with me. He said, yes, landowner here is doing his best. He's trying to divert a footpath and I'm supporting it. But they were having nothing on it. So I thought, well, you know, we've got to somehow get into the public consciousness, that disturbance is a problem. And so I started talking about a four-legged stool. we're all familiar with a three-legged stool, but the fourth leg is minimizing disturbance in the spring. And of course, that chimes at the moment, we've got Guy Shrubsole and his merry man, you know, right to roam and in England. And I've written various articles from the Telegraph pointing out the anomaly that actually Scotland is a country with no law of trespass, where landowners have been encouraged to put in footpaths and people, with a few exceptions, have been really good about using footpaths. England, on the other hand, is a country with the widest network of footpaths anywhere in the world, but people won't use them. They want to walk off piste.
Richard Negus: Do you think in Scotland I mean, it's a small nation. You're of what, 5.5, 5.8 million people. Do you think that actually, when I lived in Edinburgh, there seemed to be a slightly closer association. More people you would see would go out hill walk. There would be more people who would... Do you think that the people of Scotland, as I saw in Wales, they had a greater affinity and understanding of Oh, definitely.
Jamie Blackett: I mean, in any city in Scotland, you only have to look up and you can see the hills, particularly in Edinburgh, actually not so much in Glasgow, but the population is much closer to the land. I think perhaps that's why it works to a certain extent, less people. broadly speaking, a greater sympathy for what farmers are trying to do in Scotland that there is south of the border where there is a far more metropolitan population.
Richard Negus: Left field question. You very bravely and quite madly stood in an election alongside George Galloway. What on earth is going wrong with the political system at the moment? And can you see any good coming out of it for farming and the environment with all this utter bonkersness that's going on in the moment?
Jamie Blackett: Well, it is bonkers and I feel, I really feel for my fellow farmers in England, because in Scotland we're actually, I never thought I would say this, but I mean, the nationalist government is corrupt as we've seen and inept. But they are, Because the SNP relies on winning quite a lot of rural seats, genuinely rural seats, they probably actually have a slightly more sympathetic farming policy. We're still getting a single farm payment in Scotland, for example, which they're not in England. But in England, I mean, arable farmers are just giving up and selling their farms, record numbers of farm sales at the moment, particularly arable farms. And it seems to be just, we've learned nothing from history. It's sort of back to the 30s when there were whole swathes of East Anglia where there were negative rents. There were landowners paying tenants to farm their land just to keep it in some sort of good order, stop it reverting to scrub. And I can really see that we're heading in that direction if something doesn't happen. And you mentioned my time with George Galloway and I, we disagreed on lots of things, obviously, because we're at different ends of the political spectrum. But what we did agree was that the SNP were completely out of control, not being held to account. And journalists were afraid to ask the important questions. And we thought we would go around lobbing large stones into ponds and create a bit of a stir and change the narrative about the SNP. And I think we did succeed in doing that because, I mean, obviously, Nicola Sturgeon brought her nemesis completely on herself. But even before that was happening, people, journalists and actually politicians of the mainstream parties were shamed by us into actually being a bit braver. I'm hoping that Ground Cry, I haven't actually spoken to George about it, he's not much of a birder and I don't think he'll be joining our merry men, but I probably will do a podcast with him on it. But I'm hoping that we will get similar sorts of people who are not afraid to speak truth to power, as they say, to point out the elephants in the room and to bring about this change of public opinion that we so badly need. about conservation and saving our ground nesting birds. As we speak, the Cairngorms are on fire, the village of Nethy Bridge is being evacuated, Peak District is on fire, Slieve something or other in Ireland is on fire. You know, the changing the sort of metaphor, the chickens are coming home to roost. And we actually need to be talking about this stuff and not faffing around with sort of toeing the party line on, we need to actually demand legislation that will hold landowners to account if they allow the fuel load to get to a point where they cause a complete biodiversity wipeout, as is happening on, guess what, lots of RSPB reserved.
Richard Negus: Yeah. Okay. So if you we were to our listeners were first port of call, you would like them to visit to learn more about Ground Cry, although we've done a fairly deep dive into it. Yeah.
Jamie Blackett: Google it. does what it says. Google it. You'll find us on Instagram, on Facebook, which we'll get on Twitter shortly. I haven't managed to sort that out yet. There's a website where we're putting a few articles on all the rest of it. And if we could get lots of followers, then we're in a position then to start doing the petitions, the demands for judicial reviews, all that kind of stuff. And we can actually, and what I'm going to do is sort of bang out a bit of a, speak to this sort of panel of advisors, of whom you'll be one, Richard, I hope. and get a sort of manifesto together for what we want for ground nesting birds, dealing with the predators and the disturbance and the wildfires and all the problems that we all know exist and that people in the RSPB privately will acknowledge, but aren't brave enough to say it publicly. But if they've got, you know, some pretty heavyweight people saying it regularly on social media and on the radio interviews and debates and things. Hopefully they will be shamed into changing their position publicly and we will actually start to get somewhere.
Richard Negus: Superb. Jamie Blackett, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been lovely to talk to you.
Jamie Blackett: Thank you, Richard. Thank you.