CAIRNGORMS NATURE: Do you really need an excuse to leave mower in shed?
In the Cairngorms National Park ‘Let it Bloom June’ was probably been an even better month to leave grasslands to flower than ‘No Mow May’ because the main flowering time here is a little later than areas further south.
Grasslands are revealing themselves everywhere, yellow trefoils and hawkbits, purple speedwells and milkwort, pink vetches and delicate white pignut, not to mention the more common daisies and buttercups.
We’re most likely to encounter two types of buttercups in our grasslands, meadow buttercup and creeping buttercup.
The creeping buttercup likes to be in places that are richly fertile, whilst meadow buttercups are found where there’s less nitrogen.
Generally soils with less nutrients are more likely to support a greater diversity of plants, so reducing soil fertility by removing mown clippings over time will increase the likelihood for more plant diversity.
Meadow buttercups would indicate that any effort being made to reduce nutrient levels is paying off.
Unimproved grasslands have never been ploughed, reseeded or heavily fertilised. Whilst many would be considered less productive they are often the most nature rich areas and have the potential to support a vast array of plant and invertebrate life, not to mention birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles.
There are 30 (out of 32) main grassland types in Scotland that can be called ‘unimproved’ or ‘semi-improved’ and it is thought that less than three per cent of this type of grassland still exists in the UK from the amount we had in the 1930s - which is an area smaller than Dundee!
Many species which rely on unimproved grasslands are at risk – in the national park these would include plants such as the field gentian, frog orchid, lesser and greater butterfly orchid, fungi such as the date waxcap, and invertebrates such as the small blue butterfly, dingy skipper butterfly, and northern brown argus butterfly.
There are people working and volunteering to maintain the precious remnants that we have, or even creating new species-rich perennial meadows.
I was lucky enough to be out with Speyside Fields for Wildlife recently, they continue to support many landholders to create perennial meadows and are experimenting with all sorts of techniques - including the’ sowing-seeds-on-the-molehills technique’ which is very technical!
Plantlife held a meadows training day earlier this month and the Cairngorms National Park Authority will be delivering grassland workshops with farmers next month to support those wanting to boost their grasslands for nature.
Butterfly Conservation, the Bumblebee Trust and RSPB’s Rare Invertebrates project continue their work too.
For individuals who want to get involved there are volunteering opportunities with these charities, or just making some changes to how you manage grasslands can help, for example scything is a less destructive form of mowing, allowing invertebrates the chance to get away, the park authority has a number of scythes that can be borrowed for anyone wanting to try out this approach.
If you have five minutes on a sunny day to sit in a recently unmown grassland (on a picnic blanket to avoid the ticks!) you will be surprised at how much life and hope you can find.
• Rebecca Watts is a conservation officer with the Cairngorms National Park Authority.
