We are fortunate on having a field backing onto our gardens. This was agriculturally cropped until a few years ago when it was grassed over and rented out to a Kite Buggy Club. The Buggy Club only use the field sporadically so it's an ideal nesting place for the larks.
To our delight, a pair of larks has nested in the field for some years but the landowner mows the grass with tractor and mower each summer. This year it was on 15th June and later in the day I found a skylark nest which remarkably had remained intact although bowled along by the mower. There was no sign of broken eggshells or bodies of baby birds so I'm hoping they'd fledged before it happened.
The landowner is difficult to approach, however politely, although the people who rent the field are very friendly. So my questions are: What would be the least destructive times of year to mow and how do I diplomatically convince the landowner to change his mowing schedule?
Thanks in anticipation, a girl and her dog
Hi Alison
Good luck with persuading the landowner - worth a try though.
Where I live it is intensively farmed but the farmer(s) leave narrow tracks between the fields for larks to nest safely. It may be worth you also asking for strips - perhaps round the outside of the field - to be left wild.
Welcome to the forum and let's hope you can improve the situation for your Skylarks.
Cheers
Pipit
Sorry Alison but it is essential to know whether he cuts the grass and leaves it to rot or does he use it as a crop for instance and bale it.
The grass is just mowed and left to rot. There is one strip he sometimes leaves long but it's not very big.
Hi - Leaving strips would be a good idea if I could persuade him. He does sometimes leave one section unmowed but it's not very big. The larks have started nesting already by the time he mows unfortunately. Maybe I could try to locate the nesting area (not an easy job without disturbing the birds) and ask him to leave that area alone.
Hi
grond nesting birds are getting rarer.
could you agree with the farmer to check for land prior to cutting and mark any nesting area
with sticks or canes for him to mow round.
But suprisingly birds have a nack of knowing when and where to nest to get their brood off.
Good luck
a good laugh is better than a tonic
Hi Alison I think the important points here are 1)The kite buggy club rent this field so should be in control of what happens on this field which includes the mowing.
2)The Kite buggy club are more friendly than the owner so it must be much better to approach them with a request when you know what you would like them to do and tell them the reasons why politely.
3)You need to find out when it would be safe to mow after the Skylarks had finished nesting,suggest you put a question about that onto one of the moderators home page,in all probability I think if the kite buggy club could be persuaded to wait until the end of August it would be ideal but see what the expert say,s.good luck.
Hi Alison,
By mid-June, it's quite likely that any skylarks in the field have already managed to get one brood off so it may not be a total disaster. Some RSPB research shows about 1/3 of all successful skylark nests in the whole season fledge in May. Also, clutch sizes in grass apparently tend to be bigger in the early part of the season than later, and the reverse is true in cereals (probably to do with the peak availability of invertebrate prey in the respective habitats). Grass that's long enough to require a mow in June probably also is a bit longer than skylarks would prefer (assuming there are no short patches or bare ground in the meadow) and therefore any pairs going on to try for a second brood might well move off the site onto more suitable habitats anyway, before the mow takes place.
Aside from encouraging the landowner to mow as late in the summer as possible, raising the height of the mowing bar an inch or so might also offer any late summer nests a better chance of survival? Perhaps it's worth asking the club what height of grass they can cope with for their activities and then negotiate with the landowner on that basis?
Hope this helps a bit.
Colin