In 2019, Jeremy Clarkson began farming 1,000 acres at Diddly Squat, adding ponds and widening field margins. 6 years later, 45 bird species were recorded there

Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm is best known for the farming challenges featured in Amazon Prime Video series Clarkson’s Farm. But a month-long bird survey has highlighted another side of the 1,000-acre Oxfordshire property, with 45 bird species recorded at the farm.

Clarkson bought the land in 2008 and began farming it himself in 2019, after the local contractor who had been farming the land retired. Since then, he has made changes to parts of the farm, including widening field margins, leaving some hedges untrimmed, digging ponds and planting wildflower strips.

Bourne-Taylor said the farm’s bushy hedges, ponds and wide margins had helped, but she also attributed the high number of species mainly to luck and the surrounding farms.

Jeremy Clarkson took over farming at Diddly Squat in 2019

Diddly Squat Farm covers about 1,000 acres in Oxfordshire, on the edge of the Cotswolds.

Clarkson bought the land in 2008, when it was part of the Sarsden estate. The land was farmed by a local contractor, who grew crops including barley, rapeseed and wheat.

The contractor retired in 2019, and Clarkson decided to take on farming the land himself. His experiences subsequently became the focus of the Amazon series Clarkson’s Farm.

Clarkson widened field margins and dug ponds

Clarkson has also paid attention to the wildlife on the farm.

Writing about the birds at Diddly Squat, he said that when he started farming the land, the skies around the farm appeared largely empty of birds.

He responded by leaving wider margins around some fields and allowing some hedges to remain untrimmed. The wider margins meant less land was being used to grow crops, but Clarkson hoped they would provide more space for birds.

He also dug ponds and planted wildflower strips in some fields. Clarkson said he had been told that wildflowers could encourage insect life, which could provide food for birds, as per Jeremy Clarkson report in The Times

Bird survey records 45 species at Diddly Squat

To get a clearer picture of the birds on the farm, Clarkson asked bird enthusiast Hannah Bourne-Taylor to carry out a survey.

Bourne-Taylor spent a month surveying Diddly Squat and went out at dawn each day. During the survey, she identified 45 bird species at the farm.

Clarkson compared the figure with an average of 27 species on a farm. The birds recorded included whitethroats, goldfinches, buntings and skylarks.

Clarkson’s changes were not the only factor

The 45-species count should not be presented as proof that Clarkson’s farming changes alone produced the result.

Bourne-Taylor said the farm’s bushy hedges, ponds and wide margins had helped, but she also attributed the high number of species mainly to luck and the surrounding farms.

She also noted that neighbouring landowners were able to farm less intensively. That meant the wider landscape around Diddly Squat was also part of the picture.

Farming and wildlife still present challenges

The survey also highlighted the difficulty of balancing agricultural work with the needs of birds.

During the survey, Bourne-Taylor became concerned when grass was being cut while young skylarks were still in their nests. Clarkson said that waiting until the birds could fly would have affected the quality of the hay.

Weather created another problem. Clarkson said drought had prevented some of the plants he had put into the field margins from growing properly.

The month-long survey provided a snapshot of the birdlife at Diddly Squat. It recorded 45 species, while Bourne-Taylor also pointed to luck and the surrounding farms when explaining the high number of species found.