Compare and Contrast

[Neils]

This got sent to me the other day by a friend, who in turn is friends with the farmer who made the vid and I thought it was interesting on a couple of fronts, not least that it's a bit of perspective behind some of the habitat loss etc headlines and why. From the horses mouth so to speak, and I've been having a bit of chat with the guy who posted it since who's happy for me to share it here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1OgN02uh5c

[Jon]

Nice video.
There is an amazing amount of buttercup this year

[Neils]

I had the sound off the first time I saw the vid as I was working on other things and assumed it was OSR.

[gavin]

Someone tell him its not a shield bug but a froghopper. The adults come in a variety of patterns, all the same species though. Polymorphic you'd call it. He seems pretty chuffed with his field of buttercups but I have to say I like a bit more diversity in my slightly acidic lowland meadow. Fuss-pot that I am.

[Neils]

Hard man to please. We call the foam cuckoo spit round these parts if we're getting all scientific like :)

The meadow some of my hives are by would die to look like that. To be honest I don't have it in me to be that churlish about it but maybe it's because I'm a city dweller these days. I just found the contrast between "I like this field" and "this is what I need to grow so you can have your two joints for a fiver" quite interesting.

[gavin]

Hard man to please. We call the foam cuckoo spit round these parts if we're getting all scientific like :)

The meadow some of my hives are by would die to look like that. To be honest I don't have it in me to be that churlish about it but maybe it's because I'm a city dweller these days. I just found the contrast between "I like this field" and "this is what I need to grow so you can have your two joints for a fiver" quite interesting.

Yeah, I can be! Your two joints for a fiver are more likely to have been raised in some shed and fed a cereal-rich diet I reckon. OK, the field is a great step along the way and good on him for that. Really. But for me, buttercups are the vanguard and the delight of such habitats is the diversity that comes after years of autumn and winter grazing to keep it as a meadow rather than turn to scrub. Buttercups themselves don't offer a great deal in the way of pollinator or grazing insect fodder but some are nice to see.

My bees are in an orchard that hasn't had its soil turned for maybe 100 years - and the ridge and furrow structure there goes back to medieval times. In the last year there have been attempts to get it in even better shape biodiversity-wise by a more sympathetic cutting and grazing policy (associated with, of course, a goverment grant). So it has ... northern marsh orchid, common spotted orchid, ragged robin, pignut, self heal, yellow rattle, plenty of buttercups, clover, a large diversity of grasses .... and a lot more. I'll show you one day.

Natural England has a piece on the threatened lowland meadows:

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/haymeadow-large_tcm6-26705.jpg

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/biodiversity/englands/habitatofthemonth/lowlandmeadows.aspx

[Neils]

Well, he reckons its not been ploughed in living memory and surely even Gavin will like the next vid in the story of the meadow:


http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=e2zj-DYEpus

Hmm, not embedding for some reason.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hard man to please. We call the foam cuckoo spit round these parts if we're getting all scientific like :)

The meadow some of my hives are by would die to look like that. To be honest I don't have it in me to be that churlish about it but maybe it's because I'm a city dweller these days. I just found the contrast between "I like this field" and "this is what I need to grow so you can have your two joints for a fiver" quite interesting.

Are you still smoking joints at your age --- shocking
I wondered how you bred docile black bees

[Neils]

shhh, I'm supposed to be old and responsible now. :D