An Energy Crop for Birds

Participants in the Countryside Management (CMS) and Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) Schemes are encouraged to plant a limited area of a spring sown crop primarily to keep seed-eating birds alive over the ‘lean’ winter and spring months, when other food is scarce.  This crop is referred to as ‘wild bird cover’, but it’s more about getting calories into birds to give them the energy and nutrients they need to survive.  Currently over 1600ha of wild bird cover is grown on farms.

Participants can choose between one or two year mixes, which are sown every other year.  The crop is not harvested but can be grazed between the 1 March and establishment.  One year mixes contain a spring cereal like oats and a smaller seed source like linseed, as different bird species require different sizes of seed.  Cereals provide fewer calories per weight than the smaller oily seeds but form the staple diet of some birds.  The smaller seeds last longer on the ground before rotting.   

Two year mixes must contain kale (which sets seed in the second year) plus at least one other seed source, for instance spring barley.  Two year mixes can be especially valuable at the hardest time of year for seed eating birds, April and May.  This is partly because arable weeds in the two year mix also make up a part of the menu, and invertebrate populations have had a better chance to build up.

Importantly, once birds have found an area of wild bird cover they can ‘fuel-up’ without expending much energy.  In areas without wild bird cover they have to burn up more calories to search for food.

Countryside Management Branch can advise on the most suitable crop to plant, the best location on the farm, and how best to establish.  

Mr Robert Martin has planted a few small fields of wild bird cover on his County Down farm.  As an arable farmer he was already equipped to sow a wild bird crop himself, and it fitted in with his wider objective of encouraging wildlife on the farm.  He has noticed more yellowhammers in recent years, which he attributes to the wild bird cover.  This small farm bird is an indicator for the presence of a range of similar species which also benefit from farm seed sources, for example greenfinches, linnets and treesparrows.  These birds and other wildlife also feed on the insects and other invertebrates that are available in the crop in summer.

Reducing winter and spring mortality rates will be vital if we are to halt the decline in numbers of our farmland birds, and increase their distribution from current strongholds.  

For more information regarding wild bird cover please contact Countryside Management Branch at your local DARD Office.

Robert Martin in his wild bird cover crop of kale, oats and barley on his County Down farm.