Almost two seasons have passed since my last update and we are already now in early February with the glimmer of Spring just ahead and days noticeably lengthening and the sun getting stronger.
Activity in the field over the autumn and winter has been low key this time and mainly restricted to scything those areas that are not grazed and cannot be mown to try and keep the vigorous grasses at bay. The arisings (clippings) are always removed and put to the side of the field to quietly rot down and hopefully provide useful habitat. This helps keep the field as low in fertility as possible in those areas where we would like to encourage wild flowers.
Grassland management: learning curves and monumental amounts of raking!
It is very interesting to observe how the grassland changes in different parts of the field alongside different management as time goes on (see annotated plan below).
1) The hay meadow area (approx 6 acres) is cut (mown by tractor) and baled in July or August. Between 50 and 80 Sheep come on in September and graze the aftermath until December time. There is the option to put them back on in March if there is enough grass growth to support this (there hasn't been in the last 2 years). Yellow Rattle has been sown in this part of the field and has taken very well.
2) The tumps area (approx 1.5 acres) is somewhat trickier to deal with. It is too steep and lumpy with anthills to mow mechanically, so for two years now we have scythed them (top/front/sides) in late summer, raked off the grass and removed it. Then as above sheep come on to graze (sheep don't like eating long grass, they tend just to trample it down - not what we want!). Since the area is too large for us to scythe by hand, the back (North end) of the tumps has been allowed to grow rougher for now anyway.
3) The fenced off area where the woodland is growing (approx 3.6 acres) has not been grazed now since December 2019 (the wood was planted in January 2020, just before Covid become part of our everyday language). I have been in two minds, about whether to try and continue to manage some of the grassland here (outside of the tree'd area) since there are finer grasses/flowers here still trying to grow. So we've come to a compromise of scything off areas of this grassland once a year and raking them off. This creates areas of finer grassland surrounded by (now) much more rough and tussocky grass. So I'm hoping this will create some interesting differently managed grassland and micro climates. My initial idea of just letting it all 'go' here has proved more tricky in practice.
4) We have also been scything some areas of soft rush in the wetland (approx .5 acre) to stop it from taking over completely. Livestock are excluded from this area. Ultimately trees planted in the wetland will shade out some of the rush but in the areas we plan to keep open and unshaded a bit of variety of undergrowth would be good to aim for, allowing more room for other plants to come through. Soft rush is a bit of a thug without bruising or treading down by cattle or sheep and it comes back strongly after cutting (2 months last year) so managing it is an ongoing.
Snipe have been overwintering in the wetland in the thicker stands of rush so we are leaving those well alone. In the cold snap we had earlier in January we even had a fly past by half a dozen Lapwing for two days running, perhaps on the lookout for feeding grounds that were not iced up? The previous owner of our field told me that there used to be many Lapwing in here in the winter time. We have not seen any here in the 23 years we have lived here and very few flying over either. A very sad sign of the times.
5) We are trying to create a small meadow at the North end of the Top Wood. This part of the field gets very wet in the winter time and we've had a lot of Ladies Smock and Meadow Foxtail, Common Sorrel, Field and Creeping Buttercup growing there in the last 2 years. It gets a meadow cut by tractor in July and hay taken off. We did another cut in the Autumn of 21 and hand raked it off. No cut last autumn. No grazing here.
The other rather laborious job has been raking out long necklaces of molehills in the main hay meadow before they go hard and make it lumpy in the summer. If they come up in longer grass that is not mown, we leave them be - they create useful mini habitats in themselves and provide a good seeding site for new plants to come in!
Trees and woodland
The trees in the top wood had a good year last year and the Silver Birch and Rowans have been romping ahead of the rest in height. Thistles and armies of Yarrow have been colluding en masse beneath the trees making the most of the lack of cutting and livestock grazing - and for the moment the lack of shade. We have lost one or two more of the Oaks to field voles this winter. They seem to favour these trees for nibbling and gnaw through the tree just below soil level. The first sign of damage is a tree leaning at a jaunty angle which you go and rectify only to find the tree comes away in your hand. One of the downsides, perhaps, of using mulch mats. Hopefully now as the trees get larger by the year, they will be less vulnerable to such damage. In the meantime I suppose you could call it natural selection! We lost very few trees to the very droughty spring and summer last year so we are thankful for that.
A second visit by the Joy of Wildlife group
In September 2022, we had a second visit from the Joy of Wildlife group who came down to look at what invertebrate life they might find in the field. They'd come in July the previous year and like to visit at different times of the year. We were not blessed with the best of weather but a very good day was spent with nets and hand lenses and as always the group are so generous with their knowledge. Check them out here!
The photos below were taken by John Martin from the Group and a resume of the findings of the day are written up here (scroll down for our entry). Thanks to JOW for another fascinating day. The newly repaired barn came into its own as a refuge from rather heavy September rain showers!
So, what about hedges?
The field is bounded by hedges on about two thirds of its perimeter (the West side having no hedge, or a rather gappy/very poor one). In order to manage them more gently we are for the moment letting them grow up and out to gain height and depth before laying them in future years. Laying may (will!) take several seasons but so long as they are not interfering with road traffic that is fine and in fact will create more of a variety of hedges in the field, from newly laid to pretty much overgrown!
(Hedge A - see plan above)
The hedge along the roadside (above) is mainly Hawthorn and we think not that old overall. It has been laid once before. There are other things in it, some Ash (OK so far), Holly, Dog Rose, Elder, and Hazel. It has not been trimmed now for at least 2 winters. It has plenty of stems for laying so should in a few years be good to lay (you can see a more recently laid section in the distance by the Oak tree and the field gate above, laid 2 years ago).
(Hedge B)
The hedge along the bottom of the field is a bit more interesting and older, I think. It is a mix of Blackthorn, Hazel, Alder and Willow and on damper ground next to the wetland. Again we are letting it grow up and out for now to give it some breathing space. We filled in one of the big gaps with whips last year (photo below) and may do a bit more on this before February is out.
(Hedge C)
This hedge runs up the bottom part of the West side of the field and borders our neighbours land. This is very much an overstood hedge of mainly now mature Hawthorn, Blackthorn and Hazel trees. It provides fruits and nuts and flowers and has been for some time the main source of shelter for sheep on hot days in late summer/early Autumn. I think it will be too big to lay now, but could be coppiced potentially to stop it dying out in future. The hedge actually stands in our neighbours field so we don't really have a say in this I would imagine! For now, it's nice to have some mature trees on the field margins.
(Hedge D)
This is the least good hedge on our land, very gappy with Elder (we like Elder) and Holly that seems to be struggling (due to the dry springs/summers?). Since we have now planted the new wood near to the fenceline it's probable that planting a new hedge here is not really viable at this point since future management would be tricky. Further up there is a much better couple of lengths of hedge which again are being left to grow out and up and may be candidates for laying in the future.
Not forgetting dead hedges!
Dead hedges are such a great way of using up brash and trowse (local term for the brashwood taken out of hedges when laying them), providing shelter, wind breaks, screening and a deadwood habitat for invertebrates and other animals - particularly if you can allow grasses and rough margins at their base. They are also pretty easy and quick to create. We will be doing more this winter once we get some further material from some Hazel coppicing we have just had done in the garden. Below is the dead hedge we started creating a couple of years ago at the bottom of the field. It skirts one of the scrapes that fills with water in the winter time. You can leave gaps in them for mammals to move through. They need topping up once every year or two since the wood dries and 'sinks' down a bit each year.
Wood Meadows?
I have booked on to one of the Wood Meadow Trust's Wood Meadow Creation workshops this year, and am looking forward to learning more about how to integrate trees and shrubs into meadows (and meadows into woodland) and seeing if there is any further scope for doing that in our field to make the 'mosaic' of habitats more complex....
