Nothing to do with me
Many of our blogs are to do with things we are doing or at least trying to manage or introduce. Around building the beaver enclosure and introducing Steve and Doris, or our magnificent ploughing machines, Cagney and Lacey, the Tamworth two or what our gorgeous Gallaway cattle are up to.
In reality, nature is best at managing itself. It does that just fine in huge areas but given we don’t have that, only 210 acres, we need to help a little to replicate things that just can’t happen in such a small area. But, in most cases, stuff just happens if only we let it.
If you do not have too many herbivores, especially sheep, then trees are likely to naturally pop up if you already have the species in at least the hedgerows. The Welsh Government’s new Sustainable Farming Scheme (the name is misleading) forces every farmer wanting to receive payment to plant some trees. Not a huge number, just 250 over the course of three years. There are pages and pages of rules and guidance around this. But nowhere, nowhere, is there any mention of natural regeneration. Madness. A fundamental failure to work with nature, a desire to rule nature instead.
I have thousands of what at first sight might be qualifying seedlings. The problem is that I did not plant them. Most farmers will not have these, as their grazing density (animals per unit area) means that any sweet tasting, tender seedlings popping their heads out of the ground will be munched within a very short time. I have a herd of cows which can be supported by the land throughout the year, without supplementary feeding even in the winter. Over the summer there is abundance and while they are not about to let the land turn into pure woodland, they don’t eat, flatten and trample everything. The cattle are proxies for the big herbivores such as bison that used to roam the landscape in the UK, and unlike sheep they don’t nibble right down to the ground. So, a good number of trees make it through this process of natural regeneration and many, after starting five years ago, are now over 3 or 4m tall.
The result is that we are getting trees coming up in fields and a more natural habitat is being formed. These seedlings grow because the conditions are right for them, unlike the many planted trees that fail. The willow and aspen succeed in damper areas, oaks where it is a little drier. And they will do all that any “sustainable” farming scheme could wish for … improving soil structure thanks to deep roots, providing leaf litter, preventing erosion, helping manage water on the land, providing shelter and wind breaks, etc, etc.
We have areas of oak, aspen, alder, willow, birch, blackthorn and more. Some grow up through brambles making their chances of success pretty high. Others in open fields have to take their chances. The cows do, as mentioned, chew and trample. This is how we like it … a constantly shifting, re-balancing, dynamic mosaic, some species advancing, others withdrawing, providing the best habitat that the land and weather combination can support, letting biodiversity thrive.
In amongst all this, it seems that the population of voles and other critters are expanding. We’ve recently caught both barn owls and tawny owls on the camera traps. They are not appearing for the photoshoot but rather for dinner. Success!
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