The end of August and the last chance to make hay, and yesterday the meadow had its annual cut. Traditional meadows are cut to make hay from the end of July to the end of August which gives the farmland birds time to rear their young, and the meadow flowers time to set seed. This is not what happens with silage where the grass is cut earlier and more often. Over the next few days the grass will be turned to let it dry in the sun, then it will be baled to give us winter feed for our sheep.
This is the view from the Jubilee Viewpoint looking over the meadow to the Transporter Bridge. Beyond the meadow is the wet grassland where we have been repairing the sluices over the last few weeks so that we can continue to control the water levels to give ideal feeding grounds for the waders. This viewpoint is the place to get a good picture of the whole reserve.
Meadows are now rather rare, and although there are still some in Upper Teesdale (and the other Pennine dales) hardly any are left in the lower lying areas. We have only been cutting ours in the traditional way for the last few years and it will take more years yet before it has a good diversity of wild flowers, but it does support meadow pipits and skylarks. No fertiliser is added, and the sheep graze it over winter. Eventually this removal of nutrients will weaken the grass and let more wild flowers thrive - this is the trick if you want a wildflower meadow in your garden, never add fertiliser, and if it is still too fertile remove some of the top soil.
Peter