and Red Fescue Festuca rubrafavored by wintering geese and Eurasian Wigeon
Anas Penelope at the expense of unpalatable Sea-couch Elymus pycnanthus
(e.g. Bos et al. 2002).
Management of intertidal areas has also involved control of Reed and
Common Cordgrass Spartina anglica. Along the north Atlantic coast of the USA,
disturbance and restriction of tidal influence have encouraged expansion of reed
at the expense of cordgrass (Spartinaspp) meadow vegetation, which supports a
more important avifauna (e.g. Benoit and Askins 1999). Common Cordgrass
has been controlled in Europe using herbicide or mechanical disturbance where
it has colonized mudflats important for feeding waders (e.g. Frid et al. 1999).
14.11 Managing arable land and hedgerows
Arable land in Europe supports a high proportion of the population of many
threatened and declining bird species (Tucker and Heath 1994), and many of
these declines have been associated with agricultural intensification (Tucker and
Heath 1994; Chamberlain et al. 2000; Donald et al. 2001). This has prompted
the development of strategies to reverse bird declines, which are capable of being
incorporated into arable farming systems, applied on a large scale, and encour-
aged by agri-environment schemes (e.g. Evans et al. in press). Techniques have
also been developed to increase the harvest of gamebirds on arable farmland
(Potts 1986).
So far, most of the habitat management techniques used to benefit farmland
birds have been developed in the United Kingdom. Declines in farmland birds in
the United Kingdom have been primarily associated with the following factors:
- Increased monoculture at a farm and landscape scale, which is thought to
have been detrimental to species requiring a mixture of grassland and
arable in close proximity during the breeding season (e.g. Galbraith 1988). - A change from spring to autumn sowing. In a spring sowing system, stub-
ble is left following harvest in autumn, and only ploughed in the following
spring prior to sowing. Weedy stubbles provide an important source of seeds
and spilt grain for finches, buntings, sparrows, larks, pigeons, and water-
fowl in winter (e.g. Evans 1996). In autumn sowing systems, the stubble is
ploughed in immediately following harvest prior to autumn sowing. By
spring, autumn sown crops are too dense or tall for some bird species to
nest (Hudson et al. 1994; Wilson et al. 1997). - Increased fertilizer (primarily nitrogen) use. This has increased crop
growth and density and thereby further decreased the availability of sparse,
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