Guest blog – Creating Shrike Shrublands by Steve Jones

Steve Jones (stevecjones.uk) has worked in UK and international conservation for nearing three decades. He’s unusually fond of shrikes. In fact, he’s written a short book about how to create ’Shrike Shrublands’ in the UK (click here). Here, he summarises how we might go about creating species-rich grassland-shrubland mosaics. Twitter: @SteveCJJones

 

 

‘Scrub’ has a surprisingly bad reputation in UK conservation and farming. It’s a feature that ‘invades’ prized grassland and must be tackled by ‘scrub-bashing parties’ of well-meaning volunteers. Farmers can even get penalised for harbouring the stuff, losing area payments if native shrubs appear in their otherwise bleak improved pasture. Don’t get me wrong: a lovely patch of chalk grassland SSSI near me has been wrecked by unchecked shrub colonisation over the last two decades. But mosaics of species-rich grassy-shrublands can be wonderfully rich in wildlife, including many species of conservation concern. And they can fit in very well with livestock systems, provide perhaps grazing and browsing habitat for rare livestock breeds and provide much-appreciated spreading space for people.

Why do I call these places ‘Shrike Shrublands’? A few years ago I looked at how we might get Red-backed Shrikes back into southern England. I visited the Knepp Estate and various other ‘shriky’ places. We have pockets of nice habitat but no shrikes. Looking at sites that do have shrikes, it quickly became obvious that what makes a grassy-shrubland good for a colony of nesting Red-backed Shrike also makes such an area incredibly valuable for all manner of species.

The perfect Red-backed Shrike territory demands a number of key elements. Put those elements together and scale-up so the site can support a number of territories and you have a Shrike Shrubland of immense wildlife value.

And this is a habitat that’s straightforward to create relatively quickly. We are missing numerous opportunities to create large blocks of it. The infuriating habit of planting wall-to-wall whips – nursery transplants – of trees and shrubs bypassed the all-important grassland-shrubland mosaic stage of natural ecological succession. A carefully created Shrike Shrubland can be a precursor to three long-term habitats: new, naturally-structured native woodland; wood pasture; and, of course, more stable grassy-shrublands.

So what exactly does our habitat ambassador, the Red-backed Shrike, look for in the perfect territory? Well, they have an inordinate fondness for beetles, especially dung beetles. Those associated with cattle dung are prized. We can’t bring back Aurochs but domestic cattle dung is just as good – provided it’s free of toxic anti-parasitic drugs. As a scan-and-pounce type hunter, the Red-backed Shrike needs open grassland with numerous, but widely scattered and small patches of shrubs. And these must provide access to a mosaic of disturbed ground, tightly grazed lawns and tussocky, flower-rich grassland within easy scanning distance.

That flower-rich attribute is vital: shrikes also love bumblebees and other Hymenoptera. The site must have a species-rich succession of flowering herbaceous wildflowers and shrubs drawing in the pollinators.

The tightly grazed lawns and disturbed ground are key to food accessibility and can be generated by Rabbits. Non-native but such a good habitat creator. An early intervention, if your shrubland creation site is very open (say a large arable field) is to distribute brash piles across the site. These will hopefully draw-in Rabbits and initiate warren creation, with the ground vegetation heterogeneity following as the habitat develops. Make sure you have plenty of flower-rich taller swards too, as these will fill up with grasshoppers, and shrikes love Orthoptera.

If you are starting with a large arable field, rough it up a bit. Dig some scrapes and build some low mounds of friable soil with south-facing cliffs. Block any in-field sub-surface drainage to re-ignite lost seepages. Dig clean-water pools. These will draw in another favoured shrike food resource: dragonflies and damselflies.

It’s easier to develop the flower-rich component of a Shrike Shrubland if you start with arable. Here, you can spread green hay full of wildflower seeds. You just want to speed the process up and ensure flowering herbaceous plants can get a toe-hold in the early years.

If native shrubs are on site or nearby, they’ll colonise. But, again, to speed things up, plant Bramble cuttings (maybe under those brash piles) and small groups of thorny shrubs: Field and Dog Rose, Blackthorn, Hawthorn etc. Just make sure these are small clumps and widely scattered: from a shrike perspective these are the vantage points from which to hunt and a place to conceal the nest. Plant a Crab Apple or Wild Pear in one or two clumps too.

What about long-term management? If your Shrike Shrubland is on your farm use cattle to graze it lightly, with a bit of grazing in summer to ensure those dung beetles have enough to eat. Don’t worry about deer: they’ll sculpt shrub clump development rather than preventing it entirely, in the southern England lowlands at least. If you’re aim is to develop wood pasture, you could do much the same – year round very light grazing with cattle, ponies, rare and local breeds. If you want to create a structurally complex native woodland in the long-term, very, very light grazing and browsing for the first decade capitalises on the early successional grassland-shrubland phase whilst allowing native trees and shrubs to get establish. Occasional grazing by cattle and ponies in the longer-term will mimic the movements of herds of Aurochs and Wild Horses. And, if at all possible, champion Wild Boar. These wonderful, neglected natives create the patches of bare ground much loved by hunting shrikes and maintain habitat heterogeneity at a small scale.

Given the amount of ‘woodland’ planting we’re doing in southern England, we could be creating a shifting mosaic of Shrike Shrublands across the region if only we could avoid so much uncompromising whip planting.

Such places will likely support Turtle Doves, Cuckoos, Nightingales, Hedgehogs, feeding bats, Glow Worms, Adders and all manner of species.

Will they support Red-backed Shrikes? Well, their population has shown signs of increase on the near-continent in the last few years. Maybe we’ll begin to see more spring arrivals if they begin to saturate habitat in France, Netherlands etc. If we provide the habitat, perhaps they will come. Perhaps we’ll see the sustained return of the Butcher Bird.

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