permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SANET-MG] Nesting birds in forage
Date: Sun, 30 May 2010 21:16:17 -0400
From: Timothy Muffitt <harmonyacres1@EARTHLINK.NET>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Just wondering if anyone has any creative solutions for managing a 
hayfield during nesting season. We are seeing bobolinks, I found a duck 
nest etc., but it is also time to make hay.
Every spring this concerns me.
Our farm is in Western NY.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Nesting birds in forage
Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 08:54:23 +0100
From: Kathryn Marsh <kmarsh@IOL.IE>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Some obvious things like never mowing around the outside leaving the 
birds isolated in the middle - always set up a mowing pattern so its 
easy for them to make a run for it.

Leave a swathe fifteen feet wide unmowed around the edge of the field - 
you could even stitch native wildflower seeds and bird fodder crops into 
this as well as a nature reserve

If there are any patches of poor quality grass that you aren't going to 
get decent hay off maybe you can consider leaving biodiversity islands.

I had an uncle who used to walk his hayfields as soon as nesting season 
started marking each nest with a tall cane as it was built and leaving a 
couple of yards of cover around when it came to mowing - he swore it 
really paid off in terms of pest and disease control and weed control 
because he'd left both insect eaters and seed eaters in place. If 
something was trying to nest in a seriously inconvenient place he 
destroyed the nest immediately so that the bird had to move to somewhere 
where it was less of a problem

I had a major problem one year when I was still in small scale 
commercial fruit growing when blackbirds and thrushes managed to nest 
inside the fruit cages - very few red currants that year.