A SIX-YEAR effort to save Burnley’s favourite songbird has encountered difficulties but campaigners have vowed to continue an extensive preservation initiative.

Twite numbers in 14 out of 18 colonies monitored by the RSPB, including a number near Cliviger and Hurstwood, have fallen despite habitat restoration work.

Around 585 hectares of moors and hay meadows in the South Pennines, and 64 landholders, have been included in ongoing work to boost numbers of the threatened bird, otherwise known as the Pennine finch.

Katie Aspin, twite recovery project officer, said there had been increases in mid-season breeding plants, like common sorrel and cat’s ear.

But this had not been seen for dandelions, a food source relied upon earlier on, and autumn hawkbit, found later in the season.

She said: “We know that it takes time for habitat management work, particularly hay meadow restoration and creation, to have its full effects and for the twite to respond accordingly.

“And we believe the lack of the hoped-for response by the twite population is simply because it could be too early for our intervention work to produce an effect.”

Plans for the coming season will concentrate on ways of improving food supplies earlier in the season and changing the ways some pastures are managed to provide similar sources later on.

Pam Warhurst, chairman of the South Pennines Local Nature Partnership and Pennine Prospects, which have supported the work since 2010, said: “While the decline in numbers of twite breeding here is worrying, everybody is committed to work to to continue this important ecological restoration not just to ensure a future for the last breeding pairs of twite in England but because of the additional benefits it has derived whether botanically or our invertebrates, including pollinators.”

A Natural England spokesman said: “Where we are working with farmers in areas known for twite populations, we ensure that we give appropriate land management advice to farmers.”