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As a small boy obsessed with wildlife I have vivid memories of old Bill, my now departed Grandad who farmed the Windle 'moss' on the outskirts of St Helens, Lancashire. He'd tell me about the fauna and flora living on that little piece of northern England. That's a picture of him on the right in 1928 standing with his beloved shire horses.

One of the tales I remember involved these draught animals, and how when ploughing potato drills he'd keep a keen eye for 'peewits' (now commonly called lapwings) flying off the nest so that a space could be left for the eggs to hatch.

Fast forward 80 years and despite the massive agricultural intensification since World War 2, this approach still exists. The other picture of the bird has been sent to us by Philip Onions, another Lancashire farmer. He says: "Thought this picture might be of use to you. it is a Curlew chick that hatched on our farm in one of our flowering meadows. This bird would never have lived if we had not stopped all cultivation such as rolling or harrowing early in the year, and then not mown the field until late.

"I often see silage trailers leaving other fields full of grass. If this chick had hatched in these it would have been chopped up and fed to cows as part of the silage operation. After taking this photo the chick was released and went on to maturity and was seen later in the year flying with his mum and dad."

This website is dedicated both to my mother's father and to the approach of modern farmers like Mr Onions. I hope you find it of keen interest as the issues of farmland biodiversity, and the environmental benefits of local quality food gather momentum.

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