Don't overlook grass as a habitat for game

We may not think of grazing ground as being of much use on a shoot but, if managed correctly, it can be an asset for sport and wild birdlife

There is a little field right next to an old Kentish farmhouse that carries the name First Horse Marsh. In its heyday, it produced enough grazing for one working horse and, being close to the house, it was used to graze the best horse overnight, so that it would be quickest into harness in the morning.

The name serves as a reminder that, even in mainly arable country, there would always have been some grass fields to pasture the horses. Indeed, I have heard it said that at the peak of horse-powered agriculture, one-fifth of the land needed to be devoted to feeding them.

Today, we tend to think of grass as pretty barren and even hostile in terms of its value to game and shooting. In the most intensive of livestock systems, there can be precious little cover for game. Worse still, intensively managed silage grass is a recipe for cut-out nests, if there are any ground-nesting birds on the farm.

With an early-spring option of short turf where the stock is grazing, or the fast-growing silage fields, any birds that look for taller cover in which to lay are likely to make the wrong choice, with dire consequences come mowing time.

Dramatic

Not so long ago, our management and use of grass offered a living for a range of birds, some of which have all but gone from the modern countryside. The corncrake is perhaps the most dramatic example. It was once so common that, according to Mrs Beeton in the 1860s, it was a regular feature in the poulterers’ shops from 12 August to mid-September.

By the 1920s, when my father was a boy, it was much declined, but its rasping ‘song’ was still a feature of warm summer nights in rural Kent. Today, there are only a few left, mostly in crofting areas of the Outer Hebrides, and it is completely absent from most of the country.