The whole farming system on the Norfolk Estate has been changed to bring about this recovery in biodiversity as part of the ‘Peppering Project''.

The other crucial element to the restoration plan is legal predator control which is carried out by the keepers following best practice as set out by DEFRA's guidelines. Rats, Foxes, Stoats, Weasels, Magpies and Crows are all controlled between February to August each year to reduce predation on all ground nesting birds to give them a chance of survival. Despite all best efforts at reducing predation about one third of partridge nests are lost to predators each season before hatching.

• In the case of lapwings, a huge effort is put in to try and protect the nests and young chicks from corvids but still losses remain high at over 50%. However, on average 1.3 chicks per pair are successfully fledged, whereas the same figure supplied by the RSPB on areas elsewhere where no predator control is carried out is only 0.1 chicks per pair. The recognised figure to maintain the population is 0.8 chicks per pair and so Peppering is crucial in bucking the trend nationally, to bring about a local revival of this endangered species and indeed it is estimated that a third of all Lapwings produced in the South Downs National Park come from Peppering.

• Skylarks, another red-listed ground nesting bird have also increased from 100 pairs to 450 pairs by controlling foxes to improve the chick survival rate and there are now on average 7 pairs dancing to the wind on every field visited at Peppering. Cornbuntings, another critically endangered species have increased to sixty singing males.