Blogger: Jon Reeves, Reserves Livestock & Grazing Advisor
Note from Editor: Meet Riverside Beef, one of RSPB Minsmere’s corporate members. The RSPB has a variety of partners all committed to protecting the environment and providing homes for nature. Riverside Beef produce wildlife friendly cattle on the pastures and meadows of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Read on to find out how they work with their suppliers and how the entire chain works to improve habitat for all manner of wildlife.
Livestock grazing on nature reserves are one important piece of a jigsaw puzzle to provide homes for nature. Their grazing of vegetation, the foot prints they leave in the soil and the dung they produce are all key components to providing homes for our wildlife.
Each grazing animal has a different attribute when it comes to selecting the grasses and herbs they graze. Sheep and ponies will graze a sward (an expanse of short grass) very short with their nibbling action, creating ideal conditions for lapwing to breed, leaving longer grasses that may be bitter to their pallet as tussock clumps, which in turn provide ideal homes for many insects to thrive.
Cattle graze with a ripping action, wrapping their tongues around grasses, to create a complete mosaic of sward structures, short swards, medium length for birds like redshank to weave their ingenious little “ tepees” to camouflage their eggs and longer clumps of grass ideal for snipe to hide their eggs in.
Riverside Beef Producers Ltd, a company set up in 2009, selects grazing cattle which have been contributing to providing homes for wildlife. Riverside beef work with a group of farmers who supply cattle to graze conservation areas. A Riverside Beef fieldsman selects cattle of high quality, to provide tender beef supplied through a small network of select butcher shops and restaurants in East Anglia.
When eating a Riverside Beef steak or a warming stew with friends and family in the comfort of home, it is good to reflect on the complete cycle of the many homes that have been created by the cattle providing the meat on the plate.
The RSPB, along with other conservation led organisations and farmers who manage their land for the benefit of wildlife, are the first piece of the jigsaw. Secondly the land is managed with livestock, like Riverside Beef’s cattle, to graze the sward and herbs to provide homes for an abundance of wildlife. A simple footprint of a cow in the right soil type and conditions can provide a home for the rare mouse tail plant to thrive. Cattle trampling around the water edge of ditches provide wonderful feeding opportunities for wader chicks to seek out insect larvae and opens up the ditch margins for wildflowers to provide the rich colours of nature, which in turn provide nectar for insects. The dung of livestock enriches the soil to provide an abundance of earthworms and many insects for birds like yellow wagtail to feed on.
One Big Home For Nature.
Visit Riverside Beef here.
Learn more about Minsmere’s corporate membership here.