Returning to the meadow

A comment on my previous posting regarding the wild flower meadow, made me realise that I had not fully explained the way that managing the meadow benefits the wildlife that inhabits it. So I am grateful that this was pointed out to me. Sometimes it can be difficult to know if by assuming some knowledge or experience, I am going over the heads of people. Or worse still by over explaining I know I risk sounding condescending. Therefore I do welcome comments and questions, I may not know the answer mind you as I am only a simple mouse.

It is true that by cutting the vegetation off of a flower meadow will open up the area to some predators, especially airborne ones, but the overall effect is much more positive. In the winter a lot of the vegetation would die back anyway exposing the voles, frogs, mice etc to predators. However, by cutting now, the small creatures are able to relocate from breeding areas to what will become their winter quarters sooner. Over the many centuries of cutting meadows for hay, there has been an evolutionary behaviour shift that allows them to cope with this. Also by cutting down the vegetation, some will inevitably get left in the field, this becomes food for the insects and the insects become the food for the frogs and toads. Further, by cutting the meadow, more seed from the wildflowers drops to the soil. Some of these will be eaten by the mice, voles and shrews, some will be eaten by birds, some however will have the chance to spread to fresh ground via wind dispersal, or passing through the guts of birds, complete with their own manure package, or on the feet and paws of other larger animals.

The tricks of old agricultural practices often did have a beneficial effect upon the wildlife. That is one of the problems with modern chemical and industrial methods; they leave little or no room for the wildlife. Therefore to protect crops from insect damage, crops have to be sprayed, as the absence of wildlife means that there is nothing to stop the insects from eating its way through a crop. Sometimes we forget that while yields were lower in the days before chemicals, it was the wildlife that did most of the protecting of the crops. It was not perfect but it worked well for nearly two thousand years.

Incidentally, in recent years farm subsidy payments have been encouraging farmers to take better care of the wildlife by creating wildflower strips and beetle banks etc, and the farmers that have done this have needed to spray less frequently. Thus reducing their costs of production. There is obviously a lesson for us all to learn here.

The Image is of a Greenbottle Lucilia caesar