Green Hay at Rough Banks

I haven’t been over to Rough Banks since the butterfly walk last year, and today Glorious Grasslands were seeding a substantial meadow and also cutting some green hay on the site. I joined the haycut team with David and Chris. We were going to take a green hay cut from a very species rich bank on the reserve and add it to the seeded meadow. The main idea was to just cut the patches with sparse grass, and just enough to get the seed heads. No need to go very low, as we might do during winter habitat management. Collecting green hay It took a bit of concentration to keep the blade high and also try to cut in one sweeping right to left motion. By mid morning tea break we had collected around 7 bags to be transported to the other field. Meanwhile, the rest of the team completed a hand harvest of certain species. There was a lot of lady’s bedstraw, devil’s bit scabious, cowslip, ribwort plantain, st John’s wort and many others. After lunch we spread the remaining hay over the seeded field.…