The Ugly Grazling (A Tale about Grassland Bird Habitat)
The Ugly Graze-ling
Most of us know the Hans Christian Anderson’s fable about the ugly duckling blossoming into a beautiful swan. This story extends to an unsightly ten acres of my pasture system. This rank, hideous wad of growth has prompted visitors to say, “When ya gonna mow that, it looks ugly?” Like the duckling, I have been belittled for “wasting” grass in favor of my feathered friends but this fairy tale always has a happy ending.
I preface this story by telling my customers, conservation planners and the agricultural world this activity of fallowing land for grassland bird habitat was actually planned and implemented as part of a long term strategy to make or retain more economic, biological, environmental and social wealth. Huh? Yea, this is a conscience decision-making process with a triple bottom line focus to replenish the farm’s ecological bank account.
My nutrient management plan tells me which fields are destined for the birds. Last year I placed a majority of my purchased hay along the fence-line next to this year’s nursery. While I fully admit to the pain of unrolling frozen bales, I found some solace in having my cows place fertility where I really need it. The idea of using bales as a manure spreader is well, just great, especially in building soil carbon and adding seed without expensive iron. Purposeful out-wintering is a tool to build my nesting site.
I took the animals off this paddock in early April, fixed and cleaned adjacent bird boxes and then let it rest. At this point, one should revel in the day to day magic that transforms litter into an incubator for all sorts of critters. The mystery of why a bluebird pair picks an old barn-sided house, not built to government specifications, over a new one makes me laugh. The swallows and sparrows spar over territory and the best spots to raise a family. The turkeys and crows lust for the teeming soil life under the damp hay, aerating the sward and stimulating the new seeds to germinate from the warm sun.
The creation of wildlife habitat beyond the hand of man is poetry in motion and a site to behold. As the short grass turns into an ever diverse prairie, the romper-room attracts a covey of grouse, bobolinks, red-winged blackbirds, yellow finches and the like, to form a family dynamic. The synergy also attracts deer and fawns, foxes and pups, woodchucks, rodents and really happy hawks. What makes this scene so possible is the beasts of burden who provide the hoof-work, mowing and manure to feed the community. The best part is, I just sit back and watch it happen and enjoy the Kodak moments.
The cycle of fledging young insect eaters is coming to an end with the return of the herd. I have argued at nauseam with highly educated grassland experts who advocate mowing over grazing this plethora of pasture biomass. They are so afraid of what comes out the backend of the cow tail pipe they forget their paradigm of mowing with fossil fuels creates a negative energy balance. And what’s worse, it produces no food for anyone. It’s so one dimensional to not trust the management or experience of a highly skilled steward of the sward but I really enjoy the conflict. Being regarded as a dandelion is high praise indeed!
Traveling through a tall grassland setting up portable fences can be an exhilarating and harrowing experience all in one. Insects and critters fly and scurry with every step. Upon studying the plant species, it is a very diverse, jungle-like phenomenon. I have the good things like cool season grasses, legumes and important forbs but also have the dreaded weeds of society which exhibit their flowering prowess, thumbing their leaves at this paltry human. What my nemesis doesn’t realize is I want him to think he has beaten me, for in the beauty of the blossoms is nectar for the bees and soon to be food for the soil life below. The plants I truly want are full of golden seeds with deep root systems packed with minerals waving in the breeze awaiting the return of their regenerative propagators, the cows.
The day the circle of life is completed for this year’s grassland bird habitat nursery has rewards for soil fertility far into the future . Those darn cows bite off the seed heads full of the sun’s energy, rip the leaves off the understory, puncture the burdock’s fat ears and trample and trod what they don’t like into the soil substrate exciting a cupful of biological life that dwarfs the human population. For me, the true test of the plan is to go out after a rain and see the litter being consumed by earthworms, the patties being bore into by dung beetles and the wisps of young plants feathered amongst the rotting organic matter.
The pace we keep and the pressure in agriculture to feed the world I fear doesn’t allow us to look that deep into our farms and discover how much true profit is in working intimately with our own natural resources. If we concentrated more on wealth generating opportunities and expenses closer to the ground instead of trying to figure out a way to birth a baby tractor, we may be more satisfied in our operations. However, we all know the struggle to be in animal agriculture and the fight to tell the stories of how animals can be good for the land.
I know I am heading in the right direction when I watch my animals graze dense, diverse, water-holding forage dropping biologically charged worm food behind them and enjoying the site of young fledglings and empty-nesters picking flies off the faces of some happy bovines. I also realize less tugging on my purse strings by not buying expensive sprays or dewormers. Now is this really that ugly?
“Even the elder-tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, “I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.” Published in Lancaster Farming 7/25/2010