“If you want to see lots of farmland birds in winter, find a stubble field – the weedier (or greener) the better,” says Richard Winspear, the RSPB’s Agricultural Advice Manager.
Though rare now, stubble fields – or fields of left-over stalks from already-harvested cereals – used to support huge populations of seed-eating farmland birds through the ‘hungry gap’ in late winter.
These fields allowed arable plants to set seed among spring crops, which later became sources of pollen and nectar for insects. However, advances in farming replaced spring crops – and the stubbles that preceded them – with autumn-germinating crops.
The best stubble fields have the least herbicide application. This is particularly apparent when a final ‘dessicant’ spray, applied to speed-up the harvesting process, is avoided as it creates a barer stubble prone to soil erosion and runoff.
Farmers with greener stubble fields or strips next to hedgerows or scrub increase soil health and water quality and provide a warm winter sanctuary for spiders and insects, small mammals and our farmland birds.
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Yellow Wagtail. Photo: Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
