If you have a lot of hay and pasture, then you probably already have a land management plan in place, and you can just add supporting grassland birds to your management objectives, along with producing marketable hay, maintaining pasture, and anything else your operation covers. In that situation some kind of rotation is probably the way to go: reserve some areas uncut for the nesting birds, but do cut others in prime haying season to support your operations. You can devote a portion of the proceeds to enhancing management for the birds, if you feel that sacrificing the value of the hay left standing isn't enough of a contribution.
You'll probably suffer some regret for the disrupted birds in the fields that you cut, but you can temper that with the reflection that you're maintaining habitat which in a future year will be left uncut for them - habitat that would otherwise revert to brush, shrubs and forest, or be plowed under, or be converted to housing tracts, or be put to any number of other uses that offer nothing to grassland birds. Remember, if it wasn't for farming (a legitimate economic activity on which we all depend), there would be precious few grassland birds anywhere in our region. -Geo On Jun 14, 2010, at 10:55 AM, Jacalyn C. Spoon wrote: > Anyone want to chime in on managing hay and pasture for birds? > I’m also writing this question to NOFA and SARE. > > OK, so I’ve been told don’t cut my hay until August and other said > July. > June 15th is the accepted date that I was told in my farmer circles. > > If I delay cutting my field past mid June I can’t expect much of a > second cutting. It’s too hot and the field will not grow well. > It seems that I would eventually end up plowing to get rid of the > unwanted brush and that wouldn’t be good either. > I want to keep the land open grassland as the McMansions pop up > around me. > > Thanks, > Jacie Geo Kloppel Bowmaker & Restorer 227 Tupper Road Spencer NY 14883 607 564 7026 g...@cornell.edu geoklop...@gmail.com -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
