Across the estate, crops have matured under the summer sun, and the harvest season is beginning. Fields that have steadily changed from green to gold over recent weeks are now ready to be gathered, marking one of the most important times in the farming calendar.

Harvest is a race against both time and the weather. When conditions are right, combines and tractors work long days, often from early morning until dusk, making the most of every opportunity to bring the crops in safely and at their best.

It’s the culmination of a year’s work. Everything we’ve done through the seasons leads to these few weeks. We have to work with the weather, and sometimes that means making the most of every dry hour we get.

While the machinery is busy, the landscape remains full of wildlife.

Swallows and house martins continue to sweep low across the fields, feeding on the abundance of flying insects, while buzzards circle overhead searching for movement below. Along the hedgerows, goldfinches, linnets and sparrows forage among grasses and seed heads, and butterflies drift between patches of wildflowers left around field margins.

Early mornings still offer the chance to see roe deer quietly moving across the estate, while brown hares dart between fields before the day’s activity begins. Pheasants and partridges remain close to areas of cover as young birds continue to grow.

The estate’s carefully managed field margins and hedgerows continue to play an important role throughout the harvest, providing food, shelter and nesting habitat for countless species alongside productive farmland.

For those enjoying the public footpaths, July offers a fascinating glimpse into the rhythm of a working countryside. Watching the harvest unfold is a reminder that food production and nature exist side by side, each depending on thoughtful stewardship of the land.

As always, visitors are kindly asked to keep to the marked footpaths, keep dogs under close control, and give both farm machinery and wildlife plenty of space.

Harvest is one of the defining moments of the farming year. It is busy, demanding and weather-dependent, but it is also a time that celebrates the relationship between the land, the people who care for it, and the wildlife that continues to thrive alongside them.