No grass cutting "for the wildlife"?

[cee-dee]

There's been a halt to cutting grass verges and other grassy areas "for the wildlife" but I think it's had the opposite effect, for birds anyway.

Here, for a few years a park has been only mown late in the year (it looks an overgrown mess!!) and before this started, whenever I walked there birds were everywhere walking about, pecking whatever they were after. Another country park used to have lots of Skylarks but when they stopped mowing the grass, the Skylarks disappeared.

Today, I saw a report on the BBC website about an overgrown area where the birds who usually nest there have gone elsewhere because of the overgrowth.

 Overgrown Farne Island plants spark Arctic tern nesting fears - BBC News

Does anyone else (in their area) see overgrown verges and other land as detrimental to bird life? I suppose the wild flowers look nice and the bees will like the flowers but......?

[margaret*e]

I've just been watching that about the Arctic Terns on the news.

They stopped cutting the verges here last year and a lot of people complained about what a mess it was.

That will be why there are so many dandelions and buttercups around lately.

I hadn't thought of it affecting birds though.

[rell6534]

In my opinion, and everyone's entitled to my opinion! We need a mix of trees and hedges for the birds and native wildflowers for the butterflies, bees and other insects. We need them all.

The clip on your link concerns sea birds, and it may be different for them, but I can't see any flowers or trees there.

There was a programme on TV called Bees, Butterflies and Blooms, I watched it on catch up, so I don't know when it was actually on. It wasn't about birds, but I remember they showed a large area of long grass and there wasn't a single insect in sight.

Regarding birds, I see the constant chopping down of trees and privet hedges as detrimental to them. I had a privet hedge at the back of my garden and a new neighbour (long gone now, thank heavens) uprooted it while I was out at work and replaced it with conifers. It's taken some time, but the birds are back nesting and living in the conifer hedge. They have adapted because they have had to.

[suzieseaside]

It's about refuges for small mammals too, not just birds, bees and flowers.

[cee-dee]

The thing is, birds, mammals, insects have to have a reason for being in a particular place. An area that was once mown was always "covered" in birds. Now why were they there? They weren't there for fun? They were there because they were obviously finding something edible. Now the grass is left long, the birds are not there. Why not? Is it because they can't get at whatever it was they found so interesting before or has that particular food source gone?

Why would mammals be in a particular place? Same reason, food? Just how many mammals would be in an area of 50 or so acres now left unmown? Where've they come from? What are they?

As well as that large area, loads of verges are being left unmown and again, on a particular verge I walk past every day I used to see loads of birds all finding something interesting but now it's not mown, I'm lucky if I see a solitary Blackbird sitting forlornly on a fence there.

I think leaving such places unmown has nothing to do with "wildlife", it's some bright spark's idea to save money (to waste on idiotic projects and/or pay super-high salaries to "bright sparks?)

[cee-dee]

Round the corner from me is a playing field and there's swings, slide etc in a fenced off area and the rest of the field is just grass. The council cut the grass (now and again) with two different teams. One comes and cuts round the outside, round the trees and awkward bits. Then another team come with the big gang mowers and cut the easy to get to grass in the middle. At present, it all needs cutting, there's no birds there. As soon as they come and cut round the outside, it'll be swarming with birds but there'll be none in the middle. As soon as that gets cut, there'll be all sorts of birds all over the field pecking whatever it is they're after.

[kidmore_kats]

https://newsthump.com/2021/07/20/council-mows-the-verges-so-everyone-can-see-the-litter/

[susanwade5]

My brother decided in his wisdom to give my mothers lawn a rest by not mowingbit for months.... feeble excuse but hey ho...

The grass was up to his knees when he finally cut it and the lawn was ruined. Took months to get it back into condition.

There are areas that can be left fallow, and they should be, to protect the species that flourish in meadowland, but not all creatures thrive in that habitat!

Im pretty sure that the council had money in mind when they took the decision to halt sending the mowers in....