Oils
Rapeseed Oil
Chili Oil
Dressings
Classic Vinaigrette
Balsamic Dressing
Honey & Mustard
Ultimate Chilli DressingNow that the weather is warming up, it is the perfect time to start making salad dressings with cold pressed rapeseed oil. With half the saturated fat of olive oil and ten times the Omega 3 of olive oil, cold pressed rapeseed oil is a fantastic choice for creating healthy salad dressings. Not only healthier, Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil has a very subtle nutty flavour with buttery undertones, a fantastic flavour profile for creating delicious salad dressings. As we grow, press and bottle our rapeseed oil on our farm in Northamptonshire to LEAF Marque standards, you can rest assured that you are using a high quality, environmentally responsible British product.
Now that we know how great the oil is, here are some recipes for salad dressings with cold pressed rapeseed oil…
Blackberry Vinegar Dressing
Ingredients:
1tsp Dijon mustard
1tbsp blackberry vinegar (we like Scrubby Oak or you can make your own with our simple recipe below)
3tbsp Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil
Method:
Mix the blackberry vinegar and dijon mustard in a screw top jar, then put the lid on and shake well. Add the Mellow Yellow (put the lid on again!) and shake vigorously again to get it all thoroughly blended. Adjust seasoning to taste. Store in the fridge and enjoy.
For the Blackberry Vinegar, steep blackberries with an equal quantity of cider vinegar for 5-10 days. After this time, strain the liquid and boil for 8-10 minutes with 450g of sugar per 700ml of liquid.
Sweet Oriental Dressing
Ingredients:
1tbsp runny honey
½ chopped red chilli
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil
Method:
Combine the runny honey, chopped chilli, dark soy sauce and Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil. Stir vigorously until combined.
Did you know that we make our own range of salad dressings?
– Honey & Mustard Dressing – Superbly balanced sweetness with a fantastic bite. Use on anything from a salad to a sausage. Try Honey & Mustard on our Asparagus, Salmon and Avocado Bruschetta as a tasty lunch or light dinner, the salmon and avocado perfectly complement the sweet and sharp flavour from honey and mustard.
– Classic Vinaigrette – The ultimate salad dressing with a sharp tangy taste, perfect for a green salad. Try Classic Vinaigrette in this recipe for a Protein Power Pot with quinoa, watercress, egg and tuna for a filling lunch recipe ideal for taking to work.
– Balsamic Dressing – A modern British twist on the classic Italian dressing, made with Aspall’s Apple Balsamic Vinegar for a deliciously fruity flavour. This dressing is perfect with Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella to highlight the delicious Italian flavour of the balsamic.
Find more salad recipes on the Recipe section of our website.
We all know that food waste is a growing problem. In 2016, British shoppers threw away a shocking 160 million bananas! Alhough they may be the countries favourite fruit to snack on, they are also the most wasted. Unfortunately, 1 in 3 people will throw away a banana if it has a bruise or even a single black mark on its skin. It really is bananas!
Here at Farrington’s, we think that one of the best ways to cut down food waste is to shout about all the amazing recipes that you can use these ingredients in, rather than throwing them away. So, here are our Top 5 Leftover Banana Recipes…
If you’re not ready to make any of these recipes straight away, just peel and slice your bananas, and then freeze them in a Tupperware box or freezer bag. Once in slices, the frozen bananas are perfect for smoothies or any of our other recipes. You’ll have banana ready to go in your freezer for whenever you fancy making one of these recipes!
Banana Bread – The original way to use up bananas. Banana bread is a regular in the Mellow Yellow kitchen as it is such a simple cake to bake and gives truly delicious results! We have two well loved recipes, click here for our traditional recipe and here for our vegan alternative!
Banana Ice-Cream – Freeze bananas as they go past the point you would like to eat them. Cut the frozen bananas into a food processor and add 1 generous tablespoon of vanilla yogurt (or any other type of dairy like quark, double cream, forage frais) per banana. Blitz until smooth. Each banana creates two scoops of ice cream. Serve immediately. (Preferably with warm brownies.)
Vegan Pancakes – If you want to try vegan pancakes, ripe bananas are perfect. Simply mash 1 banana and whisk together with 150ml coconut milk (or any other milk alternative you like), 100g plain flour and ½ tsp baking powder. This mixture is meant to be pourable so if it’s too thick just add a splash more milk, or if too runny add another spoonful of flour. Heat up some Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil in a frying pan and dollop large tablespoons of your mixture in to cook. Cook each pancake for 2-3 minutes, flipping when bubbles begin to appear on top, then cook for a further 2 minutes. Serve your pancakes in a big stack with your choice of sauce drizzled over.
Carrot and Banana Cake – Our oldest and most loved cake recipe. So easy, delicious and freezes well – a total favourite. The carrot and banana cake is a great afternoon tea sweet choice and a fantastic way to cut down on your food waste by using bananas rather than throwing them away. Find the recipe here.
Smoothies – Overripe or frozen bananas are perfect for smoothies! Simply add them to your blender with any other fruit, milk or yogurt you have and after a a quick blitz, you’ll have a delicious and filling breakfast smoothie!
What do you use your leftover bananas for? Share your recipes with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!
We spoke to chef Gavin Austin about how and why he uses Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil…
1. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and what you do at Northampton Saints?
I’m originally from North Norfolk. I’ve been cooking for over twenty years and am currently the team performance chef at the Northampton Saints.
2. How did you first hear of Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil?
It was a good while ago now! When I moved down to Northamptonshire to work at Oundle Mill, I heard about Mellow Yellow at the Northamptonshire Food Awards. This must have been about 6 years ago and I have been using it ever since.
3. What were your reasons for switching to Mellow Yellow?
Well it’s the ultimate oil. I don’t think anything else is as good. It’s really versatile for my uses and really good for you.
4. What do you use Mellow Yellow for now?
I use it for everything! Dressings, cooking breakfast, lunch, I even add it into desserts. The flavour works brilliantly with dark chocolate, orange and sea salt.
5. What would you say is the biggest benefit to using Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil?
It’s healthy and not full of rubbish. Plus it’s local! I like to support independent local businesses so Farrington’s is perfect.
6. What is your favourite recipe to use Mellow Yellow in?
That’s a really hard question as I pretty much use it in everything. It goes into probably 95% of my cooking. Vegetables, chicken, scrambled eggs, caponata, etc, all use it. It’s just so versatile so I couldn’t pick a favourite.
7. We know you try to encourage the players to cook at home themselves, who is the best or most creative home-cook?
The names that spring to mind are Christian Day and Jamie Gibson, they stand out as two of the most foodie players.
8. As the weather is pretty cold at the moment, what’s your go-to winter warming comfort food dish?
Anything slow cooked!
If you enjoyed this interview with chef Gavin Austin, why not watch our video with him at the Saints last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPcDwXTvrgg
I have been asked in the past what we do in the winter months. People comment, saying “Surely as an arable farmer, you plant the crops in the autumn, go away on holiday and come back the following summer ready to harvest them?” Nice thought, but I’m afraid the reality is a little different.
Admittedly, on an arable farm, where we only grow crops and do not have any livestock to look after, the winter months are quiet and it can be an opportunity to relax on a holiday if you wish. However, I have always found it the time of year for research, planning and projects, of which we have done many over the years. Back around the millennium, I remember spending many winter months researching the viability of creating a cold pressed rapeseed oil business on our farm, as a diversification project on something I found very interesting and to hopefully bring a little extra income to the family business. Looking back, I think this was time very well spent.
Of course winter is an ideal time for us to service all the farm machinery in preparation for the coming spring and summer months when we will want it to work long and hard without too many breakdowns. We have done many building projects over the years, both for new machinery ideas and for buildings on the farm. Some examples have been building a new trailer, or creating a water bowser. In the past, when I was a young boy and even before I was born, my Father and Grandfather were at their happiest creating new weird and wonderful machines in the farm workshop. Two of the most extravagant examples included a six-wheel drive tractor, converted from a World War II army fire engine. I remember going across the fields with them on this machine, before it finally over heated and was retired in the nettles. Their most famous project was when they took two normal tractors, replaced the standard engines with more powerful versions, before removing the front axils off both tractors and joining them together to make an articulated four-wheel drive machine, driven by one person from the back tractor. This was certainly cutting-edge engineering in its day, that was later copied and refined by machinery manufacturers in future years.
We have restored our beautiful traditional barns and converted them from redundant old farm buildings into offices, including our farm office today. New modern grain stores have been designed and built to cope with storing and drying the grain at the speed the modern combine harvester brings the crops in. Over the years, we have built all of the factory and some of the machinery inside it for Farrington Oils. Some of these projects seem to start as winter job ideas, but tend to stretch through other months of the year and before long take on a whole life of their own. The most recent being the latest expansion of Farrington Oils to create a new toilet and changing facilities, as well as extra space to mix our salad dressings and store ingredients. We have even made a little development kitchen in which Eli is currently very busy with her trusted jam jar creating some possible exciting new dressing recipes. This whole project started in April last year, we had a few weeks break for harvest to take place, before finally finishing the project just before Christmas.
Marvin planting saplings in Jan 2018
The other main type of project we have done during winter over the years is planting trees and hedges. We have literally planted thousands of trees and several kilometres of hedges since 1987 when my Father planted the first couple of spinneys on the farm. They are now well established, adding beauty and wildlife habitats to the landscape. This year we have been at it again. Marvin spent the time before Christmas with the chainsaw, thinning out dead wood from a copse area and old hedge, in readiness to replant with new young saplings in the first weeks of January. He has now created a few hundred more metres of hedgerow – Father and I have helped him with the spade to get some of the 2,000 hedge and tree plants put into the soil. We will have to weed around the young saplings for the first two years, after that they will hopefully grow and thrive, adding more beauty and wildlife habitat for many years to come. Additionally, we have a pile of wood ready to cut up for the fire to keep us warm at home next year.
Spinney on Bottom Farm that was planted in 1987, photo taken Feb 2018.
Although winter on Bottom Farm may not be spent on a combine harvester or tractor, it certainly is far from quiet!
Did you know that cold pressed rapeseed oil is a great, heart-happy oil? Are you looking to improve your health? Well we have one simple change for you that will help you with this goal. Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil is a brilliantly healthy, British cooking oil that is grown, pressed and bottled in Northamptonshire. Read on to find out more about all the fantastic health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil…
Top 4 Health Benefits of Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil
Low saturated fat
A balance of Omega 3 and Omega 6
Contains Vitamin E
Naturally occurring plant sterols
Low saturated fat
Saturated fat is usually found in high levels in fatty meats, full fat dairy products, coconut oil and lard. For many years, health professionals have advised against consuming high amounts of saturated fat as they have been shown to raise your LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) levels. LDL is known as ‘bad’ cholesterol as high levels of LDL blood cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease by building up in our arteries and causing them to narrow. Cold pressed rapeseed oil, however, has very low levels of saturated fat. This is one of the major health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil! For more information from the British Heart Foundation, click here.
A balance of Omega 3 & Omega 6
Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil contains both Omega 3 and Omega 6. These are essential fatty acids that the body is unable to produce itself so we need to ensure that we consume these in our diet. These two essential fatty acids contribute to brain development, growth and maintaining a healthy immune system. It is important that we consume these two fatty acids in the correct ratio as found in cold pressed rapeseed oil. It is this ratio that makes this one of our top health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil. We have more information on Omega 3 and 6 on our Health and Nutrition page.
Contains Vitamin E
Another of the health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil is that it contains vitamin E. Vitamin E occurs naturally in cold pressed rapeseed oil and is needed for a strong immune system and healthy eyes and skin.
Naturally occurring plant sterols
Last but not least in our top health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil are the naturally occurring plant sterols found in this brilliant oil. Plant sterols are fat-soluble compounds found in some vegetables, nuts and seeds, including rapeseed. They are similar in structure to cholesterol therefore when eaten, plant sterols compete with cholesterol for absorption into the bloodstream. Our bodies find it easier to absorb plant sterols as they block the cholesterol from being absorbed. This results in the cholesterol passing through and out of the body via the stool. Find more information here.
Comparison of oils:
With these brilliant health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil, it’s easy to see why so many people are swapping to Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil! Find out where to buy here.
If you want to know more about cold pressed rapeseed oil, how we produce it, how it grows, the simple way we press the seeds to produce our cold pressed rapeseed oil and more on what is so special about cold pressed rapeseed oil, have a look at this article!
For recipe inspiration on what to cook with cold pressed rapeseed oil, visit our Recipe page here.
Christmas is just around the corner so now is the perfect time to share with you some of our favourite recipes, hints and tips for festive cooking! The Mellow Yellow team has all contributed a recipe or a favourite tip to help you ensure this is the best Christmas yet.
Tips For Roasties…
Roast potatoes – Make sure you use Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil. Thanks to its high smoke point, it helps you achieve extra crispy roast potatoes as it performs brilliantly at high temperatures. Take a look at Joanna’s freezer tip below if you want to save time on your roasties.
To save time on the big day, parboil and freeze your potatoes a few days earlier. Then once your meat is out of the oven, heat up Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil in a roasting dish until nice and hot, then put in your parboiled potatoes from frozen. This will make EVEN crispier roast potatoes, and save you a bit of space on the hob. (As heard by Joanna on Radio 2.)
Mince Pies
Mince Pies – Homemade mince pies really are so much better than shop bought ones, plus our recipe has a secret addition of chopped apple in the mincemeat that elevates the flavour!
A different way to eat a mince pie – Heat it up and take the lid off, pop a slice of stilton inside while it’s still hot then put the lid back on. Enjoy your sweet and savoury treat! (Rachel promises us this is delicious.)
Any other tips?
Use roasting bags for a juicy turkey and start with a clean oven to make the clean up easier! If you’re not feeding the five thousand, buy a turkey crown as it’s solid meat, takes less time and fits in a roasting bag perfectly! (Jo’s top tips for a stress-free Christmas!)
Leftover Christmas Cake? Don’t waste it, instead cut into large chunks, cover with clingfilm then foil, and freeze. (Gina’s favourite way to keep Christmas going until Spring)
Chestnut Stuffing – Emily’s Christmas dinner highlight
Ingredients:
100g bacon
50ml Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil, plus extra for greasing tin
1 onion peeled and chopped finely
150g sliced mushrooms
250g chestnut puree
250g tin whole chestnuts ground like breadcrumbs
Small tin or tube of liver pate
3 large cloves of garlic chopped finely
1 tablespoon (15ml) dried oregano
50g fresh breadcrumbs
1 lightly whisked egg
Salt and black pepper to taste
Method:
Cut any rind off the bacon and chop into small cubes. Put Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil into pan and fry bacon and onion for about 3-5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl with all the fat and stir in well with all the other ingredients and check seasoning. Grease baking tin with Mellow Yellow oil and cook in a preheated oven at 180c for 45 minutes.
Boozy Cranberry sauce – Richard’s way to add a kick to lunch time
This is one to start this year ready for next Christmas as it needs 10-12 months to infuse. But its a great thing to start during any time off you have this Christmas!
Firstly make cranberry Gin as you would sloe gin:
Ingredients:
450g/1lb Cranberries, frozen will work
225g/8oz caster sugar
1 litre/1¾ pint gin
Method:
Prick the skin of the cranberries all over with a clean needle and put in a large sterilised jar. Pour in the sugar and the gin, seal tightly and shake well. Store in a cool, dark cupboard and shake every other day for a week. Then shake once a week for at least two months. After 10-12 months strain the cranberry gin through muslin into a sterilised bottle . Once you have strained the gin, cook the soaked cranberries down to a jam like consistency adding a little salt and or sugar to taste. And there you go, delicious homemade boozy cranberry sauce, plus cranberry gin for a festive G&T!
Find more recipes here.
As the UK’s first seed to bottle producer of rapeseed oil, our British heritage is incredibly important to us! From 24th September to 8th October, the UK has been celebrating British Food Fortnight with the hashtag #BritishFoodFortnight. To show our passion for British food, we’ve been sharing our favourite recipes on Twitter each day. In case you missed these recipes, we’ve collated them all here for you. So take a look through and let us know which ones you’ll be trying next.
No self-respecting roast dinner would ever be seen without these by its side. Using our British cold pressed rapeseed oil on your Sunday roasties ensures you the crispiest potatoes. Thanks to the high smoke point of the oil, your potatoes can get nice and hot, helping them get that crispy coating.
A quintessentially British fruit, the humble plum sings in this Plum Cake recipe. With ground almonds to add a nutty flavour, this cake is fantastic for a Sunday afternoon tea, or even just to whip up mid-week for a surprise guest!
Using British beef, this recipe will always go down well when brought to the table. Simple, perfectly seasoned and deliciously succulent, it truly is a classic dish. We love our steak served with potato wedges and garlic mushrooms, but there are so many other options you could choose from.
Almond and rhubarb make perfect partners in our Rhubarb Cake, which is an easy yet impressive bake. This is a fantastic way to use any seasonal rhubarb you have, as well as impressing your family with a delicious treat for them to tuck into!
One Pot Honey & Mustard Parsnip Chicken
This recipe uses our Honey & Mustard dressing as a delicious cooking sauce. Simply pour the sauce over your chicken thighs and British parsnips, pop it in the oven and there you go, a tasty one pot dish that’s perfect to warm you up during the colder weather that British Food Fortnight signals.
Usually eaten at Easter time, British lamb can also be sourced later on in the year with a stronger, more developed flavour. Our recipe for Roast Lamb uses garlic, rosemary, lemon and plenty of seasoning to bring out the most flavour possible from your lamb.
A true British favourite, we couldn’t talk about British Food Fortnight without including these. In our opinion, no matter what meat you’re having, no Sunday roast is complete without a Yorkshire pudding brimming with gravy. Get your oil nice and hot, ours has a high smoke point which really helps, to get those puddings rising nice and high!
Blueberry & White Chocolate Muffins
The delicate flavour of Mellow Yellow lends itself perfectly to cake baking and is particularly good in these marvellous muffins. Blueberry and White Chocolate Muffins fresh from the oven will attract the entire household, so make sure to grab one for yourself before everyone else descends!
Such a simple side to make, and goes with so many different things. We like using British rooster potatoes in our Potato Wedges, but you can use any type of potato. A drizzling of Mellow Yellow and a good pinch of salt is all you need to create the most delicious wedges to be enjoyed by the whole family.
A beautifully light and fluffy lemon cake with a zesty lemon drizzle icing. Quick and easy for an everyday treat for the family but makes an impressive afternoon tea centerpiece if you’re planning a party.
Fresh Asparagus and Mellow Yellow Mayonnaise
British asparagus has to be one of our highlights of June, especially when combined with our delicious Mellow Yellow Mayonnaise. Our favourite way to serve this is by BBQ’ing the asparagus then serving it in a big pile with plenty of mayo ready for dipping!
This recipe produces a really easy, moist fruity apple cake. A perfect way to use up any seasonal British apples (cookers or eating apples) whichever you have in the garden or the fruit bowl. Served with creme fraiche, or even ice cream if the weather is warm enough, this cake is sure to be a hit!
A wonderfully unusual way to use courgettes when in season. This fluffy courgette cake with its delicious lime cream cheese filling is a coffee morning or afternoon tea show stopper!
Pastry no longer needs butter! Using our incredibly simple recipe, you can make a quick and delicious pastry with Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil. This recipe is for a fruity Blackberry and Apple Galette, perfect with a hearty pouring of custard or double cream.
British Food Fortnight has been a great way for us to shout about all the amazing food produced in Britain, but just remember to keep buying British! Tweet us and let us know which recipe is your favourite!
We are over the moon to have won not one, not two, not even three, but SIX stars at the 2017 Great Taste Awards for our Farrington’s Mellow Yellow products this year. The judges have awarded a 1 star Great Taste award to each of our Classic Vinaigrette, Honey & Mustard Dressing, Balsamic Vinegar Dressing, Chilli Oil, Mayonnaise and Garlic Mayonnaise. For most products, this is their second, or even third Great Taste award but for our Chilli Oil, this is the first time it has been awarded a Great Taste star and we couldn’t be happier!
The Great Taste awards are the world’s largest and most trusted food and drink awards, with a panel of over 500 experts judging each product, being described as the ‘Oscars of the food world’. This year, 12,366 food and drink products entered into these prestigious awards, with only the very best products being awarded the coveted stars.
Here’s what the judges had to say about our products:
Chilli Oil: A wonderful colour and clarity. The nuttiness of the oil is retained and a subtle hint of chilli makes a wonderful condiment for cooking.
Balsamic Dressing: Lovely fruity sweetness that lifted the palette.
Classic Vinaigrette: Herbs add to the complexity of flour with all the ingredients working in harmony.
Honey & Mustard Dressing: The honey flavour balances well with the mustard. Love the ‘pop’ of the mustard seeds too.
Mayonnaise: A very good colour, and the rapeseed oil really works well here. It’s light and creamy textured, and well seasoned with a light hand.
Garlic Mayonnaise: Good clean creamy mayo with a well-judged hint of garlic. Lovely richness and mouthfeel.
We’re so proud of all our brilliant products, so if you haven’t tried them all, head over to our Where to Buy page and find your local stockist!
Situated on the top of a hill, looking out over the city of Peterborough, Hill Farm Pick Your Own has been selling Farrington’s Mellow Yellow for over 3 years now. As a pick your own farm, they are one of our more unique customers and definitely one to be proud of.
Founded in the 1970’s, Hill Farm PYO started out when John & Jill Ivens bought the farm and decided to change it from a traditional arable and livestock mixed farm to a pick your own farm, growing fresh produce and allowing the public to pick it themselves. They started off with sweetcorn and expanded into raspberries, then strawberries and all the other produce that can be found today. Hill Farm is now run by John & Jill’s son, Paddy, and his wife, Susannah. They grow an incredibly wide variety of fruits and vegetables, with the aim of extending the picking season so you can enjoy fresh, hand-picked fruit and veg for even longer. Strawberries have remained the best selling fruit each year, in fact most people know it as ‘the strawberry farm on the hill’, but pumpkins are now gaining popularity and are the second best seller. With the farm decorated with ghosts and pumpkins in all shapes and sizes, it’s not hard to see why people continue to flock to the farm in the cold of October.
We visited Hill Farm about a week into July, when there would normally be row upon row of strawberry-filled plants, however, due to the unexpectedly hot June we had this year, they were down to their last two varieties! This is one of the excitements of farming, so much is down to the weather. This year, everything has ripened at the same time rather than being spread out over the summer months. However, hidden in the rows there were still plenty of strawberries ripe for the picking!
A few years ago, pick your own had a bit of a dip in popularity, but now it is definitely back in fashion and incredibly popular as a family day out. Susannah says that it takes people back to the old way of cooking; using seasonal vegetables when they’re available. Some people even visit the farm and pick buckets of fruit to be frozen and last them the entire summer.
Keeping the crops healthy is very important. Hill Farm PYO run on a 3 year crop rotation which helps maintain the soil and keep the fields producing the very best fruit and vegetables. As well as their crop rotation, Susannah and Paddy make sure that there is a daily inspection of the fields and that a different field is picked each day.
In addition to pick your own, Hill Farm also has a shop which sells a selection of pre-picked produce as well as local products, which is where we come in. Our full range of products is available on a beautiful stand behind the counter, and they tend to sell lots of our rapeseed oil later on in the year as it is perfect for when the squashes are in season. In fact, we have a brilliant recipe for squash season: http://farrington-oils.co.uk/recipe/chilli-chorizo-butternut-slice/ .
Hill Farm Pick Your Own is open from June to the end of October, so if you’re nearby it is definitely worth a visit this summer, just remember to call ahead to see what is available for picking each day. Website: www.hillfarmpyo.co.uk, phone number: 01733 233270.
Over the years I have tried to encourage the right sort of habitats on our farm for wild birds which either just visit Bottom Farm seasonally, or make it their home all year round. I am no bird expert, but I have been fortunate to learn from others in Agriculture, and wider afield, who have specialist knowledge on what to do to help our feathered friends.
One expert who lives locally is ornithologist and former Head of Conservation for the RSPB, Dr Mark Avery. Mark has visited the farm on many occasions, often early in the mornings, armed with binoculars, notebook and pencil to see what is around. Mark and I are both full of passion and opinions for our respective points of view, but we enjoy our conversations and I, for one, have learnt a lot from him on the bird life at Bottom Farm; what we have, what may be missing or in decline and what I can do to try to improve things. Two memorable occasions of excitement were firstly, when on Mark’s first visit, he was delighted to find nesting Lapwings in a spring planted field. I thought this was normal, but Mark said this was quite rare in our part of the country, so I had got off to a good start immediately. The second is the Turtle Doves, which would visit every year. Over the last couple of years, they have not been around, but I am pleased to report, one was spotted around the farmyard again last week, although I have yet to confirm this myself. This is now another rare occurrence in our part of Northamptonshire and I have caught the excitement off Mark to try and see them here, as a sign of our farming practises creating something that this rare species requires.
As well as trying to grow the right sort of habitats around the farm, we have built four owl boxes over the years. One of these is in constant use by barn owls, where I have heard young chicks active inside and occasionally seen adults fly out at sunset to fly gracefully over the fields on their evening hunting mission. The best sign of owls is the scattering of owl pellets on the ground. Owl pellets are not droppings as some people think at first inspection. Owls eat their prey whole, then re-gurgitate the indigestible fur and bones. For the more inquisitive and less squeamish, owl pellets are a fantastic record of what exactly they are eating, as well as being able to learn about the skeletal construction of small mammals.
One of our owl boxes was officially opened by actress Tamsin Gregg, when we were launched as a LEAF Demonstration farm in April 2003. Tamsin was playing the part of farm manager Debbie Aldridge on Radio Four’s, The Archers. Since this, Tamsin has continued to have a fantastic career, winning a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress and starring in Black Books, Green Wing, Friday Night Dinner and Episodes, amongst others. We were delighted to host Tamsin and her family to our launch day, along with other guests.
Anyway, over the intervening fourteen years, the owl box finally blew of its perch in a gust of wind. Over the winter months Marvin has been busy in the farm workshop making a new exclusive penthouse suite for any self-respecting owl and family that may like to make this their new home. This is now erected in its prime position and we will watch with interest to see who decides to inhabit it.
