If I were to name one bird species that I think epitomises British farmland it would be the yellowhammer, for both its song and its striking appearance.

With a bright yellow head and breast, male yellowhammers are one of the UK’s most distinctive and handsome birds. When a male yellowhammer sings his equally distinctive song from a prominent perch on the top of a bush, he is certainly hard to miss.

His song must surely be as iconic as that of the cuckoo. It isn’t a very long song, with the initial short notes gradually increasing in volume until it ends with a few drawn out notes, which is often interpreted as ‘a little bit of bread and no cheeeese’.

The female is a muted version of her mate, with olive green tones helping to subdue the bright yellow. This gives her greater camouflage from predators whilst she is sat on the nest.

Sadly, numbers of these bright yellow birds that were once so numerous along the walks of my youth, are drastically declining in the UK. Since 1967 there has been a 62% decline in their UK population (65% in England) and numbers are still going down. Habitat loss and modern farming practices continue to have a serious effect on their breeding and wintering success. Over the years I've noticed just how scarce yellowhammers have become, which is why it’s so pleasing that we are lucky to still have a very small population clinging on along the boundary of our Dropping Well Farm and The Devil's Spittleful nature reserve. It is these few remaining pairs that have inspired our desire to help to increase this local population.

As well as hugging hedgerows of farmland, yellowhammers are also birds of heathland so our land at The Devil's Spittleful (and adjoining Rifle Range owned by Wyre Forest District Council), that sits right next door to Dropping Well Farm, provides the perfect opportunity to give these birds a boost.

As part of our Saving Worcestershire's Heathlands project, we're already doing what we can to help maintain the population of yellowhammers through the winter months by planting seed crops on Dropping Well Farm. There's plenty of habitat for them to breed in at The Devil's Spittleful too but we need your help to ensure that this neighbouring heath becomes viable breeding habitat once again.

Yellowhammers build a well-hidden nest either on the ground in a grassy tussock or low down in a bush and this makes them particularly vulnerable to disturbance and nest abandonment from March through to September.

Unfortunately, today, The Devil’s Spittleful is much too disturbed by loose dogs and by visitors wandering away from paths for us to ever expect yellowhammers to expand from their last undisturbed, but extremely restricted, breeding habitat along the embankment of the Severn Valley Railway. It's not just during the breeding season that they're vulnerable. They're relatively sedentary so it's important that they're not disturbed during the winter months too; the energy they use if flushed from their local food patch could make the difference between life and death.

We need the help of all visitors to the reserves if we are to bring the vibrant colours of yellowhammers back to the whole of the heathland, allowing them to flourish rather than cling onto the edges. So we're launching Project Yellowhammer this spring. You'll see us out, chatting to visitors and encouraging everyone (and their dogs) to stick to the paths. There's plenty of space for yellowhammers to spread back to their old territories but we need to give them the chance to do so. So, please, if you're visiting these beautiful sites (or any wild places) this year, think yellow and keep you and your four-legged friends on the designated paths.