THERE IS AN UNDERSTATED ENGLISH BIRD species, so perennially and universally persecuted by circumstance and predator alike, that Shakespeare used them, in both Henry VI and Much Ado About Nothing, as a metaphor for tragic death. It is rare, red-listed in fact, with a mere 40,000 breeding pairs still at large in the British Isles.
For a literary giant it is not that big; 30 centimetres or so in height, a fat one tops out at around 500 grams. The rasping “kerr, kerr” that passes for its song, sounds akin to a farm-gate in need of oiling. Its plumage is muted, like a dank December day in Suffolk. Doomed, tuneless and dumpily dowdy then, yet the grey partridge is an avian superstar, unique in truth, and of the utmost national importance to nature recovery.
Described by the late Dr Dick Potts, former director general of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) as “the barometer of the countryside”, the Grey is the prime indicator species for biodiversity in lowland landscapes. So pernickety is this bird regarding food and habitat, that farms with a healthy stock of partridge are guaranteed to have soils that are healthy, alive with microflora and fauna. Wild food sources will be plentiful and the hedgerows lay thick, grasslands and margins
