BATS, hares, badgers and birds have helped a farm win a national wildlife award.

Dorrington Hall Farm, near Woore, has won the biodiversity prize at the Bayer CropScience and Farming and Countryside Education Awards.

Around 600 visitors a year, mostly schoolchildren, come to the farm to learn about agriculture and how it promotes biodiversity.

Species found on the farm include brown hares, badgers, several varieties of bats and a wide range of farmland birds.

Steve Ellsmoor, pictured, who runs the farm with his wife, Jane, said: "As part of the countryside stewardship scheme we will leave some areas of the farm fallow, and leave margins around the fields, to try to encourage wildlife.

"Lapwings bred on the farm this year, which we are particularly please about, as they are nearly extinct as a breeding bird in Shropshire."

In February the farm won first prize in the Great Shropshire Pond Competition for encouraging pond wildlife.