Hay meadow management for birds

• Main Author: A. D. Mcvey
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Numenius arquata
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.585.2663; http://freespace.virgin.net/frances.watkins/fritillary/frit5/birds.pdf

Hay meadows play host to a wide variety of birds whose species composition changes with the seasons. On the Thames, hay meadows are particularly important for curlew (Numenius arquata) and other species such as corn bunting (Miliaria calandra) and yellowhammer (Emberiza citronella). The timing of the summer cut and botanical species composition will impact on the breeding and chick-feeding habitat available. In winter, periodic flooding will enable waterfowl such as teal (Anas crecca) and wigeon (Anas penelope) to feed on the fields. The paper aims to review the importance of hay meadows to birds, highlighting the impact of management activities on the birds that use them, using research carried out on various sites across England and Scotland. The value of hay meadows for birds A large proportion of bird species in Britain uses grassland at some time during the year and many species show preferences for this habitat (Vickery et al. 2001). Flood or hay meadows (MG4/5 grasslands) provide three key factors to their success: Summer feeding Nesting habitat