This week I saw a kestrel hovering over a patch of long grass on a roadside verge that, until this year, was kept cropped. It was heartening to see. This particular verge is a very wide strip of land that stands at the entrance to a farm on the Yorkshire Wolds.
The farmer's decision not to mow it down this year has meant that this bird of prey, and hopefully many others, now has somewhere to hunt.
I have been campaigning to try to persuade landowners to resist the urge to make their driveways neat and tidy and instead leave the grass long as a habitat for wildlife.
Click here for more on the issue as detailed in my latest Yorkshire Post column.
2 comments
I think times are at last a-changing. I don’t know if you are a member of the RSPB, but in the latest edition of their Birds Magazine there is a letter from a farmer calling on his fellow farmers to share his ‘born again’ enthusiasm for stewardship schemes. Page 8 – worth a read!
He is beautiful :D Another blogger and myself were just recently discussing habitat in relation to insects, similar thing but some farmers are really doing their bit for nature which is so heartening.