A fragile landscape at risk
Picture a green-gold meadow full of feathery grasses and dotted with purple, gold and pink wildflowers, all gently moving in the breeze. The air filled with the lazy hum of bees and heady with the scent of sun-warmed grass. The very thought of this might make some of us sneeze, but for most it is a quintessential view of an Oxfordshire hay meadow.
These landscapes are the remnants of a historic past, when the countryside was covered in a patchwork of fields bordered by thick hedgerows and woodlands. They have been relatively undisturbed for centuries, avoiding the intensive measures of spraying, ploughing, draining and fertilising, and now support a rich wildlife community.
The traditional hay meadow is a fragile landscape under threat. Over the last 50 years, virtually all of our lowland meadows have been lost to intensive farming, drainage and development. It is estimated that fewer than 15,000 hectares of neutral grassland - meadows that have not been improved by fertiliser - are left surviving. It is an area only one quarter the size of the New Forest for the whole of the country.
These meadows support a rich variety of flowers, some of which are rare or declining, such as green-winged orchid, pepper saxifrage and dropwort. In turn, the flowers attract bees, beetles and clouds of butterflies such as orange-tips and common blues. Threatened farmland birds like skylarks, yellowhammers and curlews rely on the meadows for food. Hares bound through the fields looking for cover, and the grasses rustle as voles run for shelter from hovering kestrels.
So hay meadows are now an incredibly rare sight in our country. But here in Oxfordshire we are blessed with a number of wonderful sites, including the Oxford Meadows right next to the A34, BBOWT's Chimney Meadows Nature Reserve near Bampton, and Wendlebury Meads and Mansmoor Closes, near Islip - a nationally important site that includes BBOWT's Woodsides Meadow Nature Reserve.
A survivor from days gone by, Woodsides Meadow lies close to Charlton-on-Otmoor. It has been in BBOWT's care for almost 20 years, during which time it has been managed carefully to protect and nurture the rare wildlife that lives there. The hay is left to grow up during the height of summer, producing a display that is second to none for sheer density and colour of wildflowers, and is then cut during July. During autumn, cattle graze the meadows to help keep soil fertility low so that wildflowers flourish.
Source: http://www.theoxfordtimes.net/display.var.2321600.0.a_fragile_landscape_at_risk.php
Created by: Rene Jorgensen 7 months ago