Farmlands Flashcards
How did traditional farming aid in conservation?
It imposed a continuous low-intensity management regime for a long period of time and consistency of management allows specialist species to thrive.
What are meadows?
They are used to produce winter fodder (once hay, now mainly silage). During spring and early summer animals are kept off of meadows and the meadow is cut in the height of summer.
They contain many spring-flowering species
What is a pasture?
They are grazed intermittently all year. They mainly contain grasses and rosette plants.
What is hay?
It has to be cut when the plants have hardened in sunny weather (late June or July). It is dried baled and kept for winter food.
What is silage?
It is fermented hay, so it can be cut much earlier in the season (usually May rather than July) and this has conservation implications for many species.
What is a Lammas meadow?
It is a form of traditional meadow management in which the land was grazed from Lammas day (12th August) to Lady day (12th February) and then left for hay.
The annual hay cut removed nutrients and slowly impoverished the soil –> a very stable regime that selected for plants which flowered in spring on low-fertility soils
What date is Lammas day?
12th August
What date is Lady day?
12th February
The few meadows that remain are proceed by strange old bye-laws.
Describe a strange old bye-law that is enacted in Yarnton Meads.
The meadow is divided into 4 sections, and each year farmers with permission to graze the meadow pick an ancient wooden token out of a bag, identifying the quarter of the meadow which they are allowed to harvest and subsequently graze.
How do we know it is likely that the oldest hay meadows date back to the Roman settlement?
The correct tool for meadows is a scythe, whose blade slices at ground level while its operator stands up right. This design seems to have appeared in Roman times, making it likely that our oldest hay meadows date back to the Roman settlement.
Which species of bird is the definitive farmland conservation disaster?
The corncrake (Crex crew)
It used to be very common but since the 1950s the decline accelerated with silage production
How are the RSPB trying to conserve corncrakes?
They are trying to encourage them by paying them to farm in a more corncrake-friendly manner; cut meadows in late July (after chicks have hatched) and mow them in a corncrake-crake friendly pattern
Name the species of crow that is rarest in Britain
Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax)
Confined to coastal areas and mountainous fringes
On RSPB’s amber list
Why is the chough crow population declining?
They require, short, well-grazed rough meadows that are declining due to intensive farming.
Which mammal has declined in the UK, possibly because of intensive farming?
The brown hare (Lepus europaeus)
They have declined in number, not sure why but intensive farming doesn’t suit them.
