Flourishing floodplain meadow
Second harvest of the week with Glorious Grasslands and I think the first floodplain meadow I’ve done this season. It wasn’t immediately obvious where the river was, or how the field could get flooded, but nevertheless it was full of floodplain indicator species.
I misread the email and arrived way too early at site. But there was a lot of bird activity in the ash copse opposite so I spent some time on my bird app identifying goldfinch, chiffchaff, blue tit, robin and white wagtail.
So already a promising habitat to spend the day in.
The other harvester broke yesterday, so just down to the one with Tom driving and Ann and I sorting the seed. Just as well from our perspective because two harvesters would have been impossible to service with just two people.
The main species to collect were saw-wort, tufted vetch and devil’s bit scabious. There was a lot of sneezewort in the meadow, but still in flower. The bird’s foot trefoil is just about starting to turn – a few pods were collected but they were still quite green.
Solved another part of the mystery as to why we are collecting way more seed per run than previous years. The harvester was running low on fuel so we set it to the minimal rev count possible. And hey presto, about 40% less seed than usual on each run. It was like the old days – sift a bit then go sit in the shade waiting for the next lot to come in!
Was a perfect day for harvesting. Bright sunshine, small breeze, large hedge for shade and unusual seed mixes.
