I had a lovely time this morning walking through a patch of slowly maturing ‘grassy-shrubland’ on a chalky arable reversion area on the Isle of Wight. I much prefer the term ‘shrubland’ to ‘scrubland’. ‘Scrub’ always sounds like something to be removed – scrubbed away, cleaned up. And that’s what we tend to do – we bash the scrub (shrubs), often to comply with Natural England’s SSSI Attribute Tables that draw ‘targets’ for % scrub cover, in turn often derived from the National Vegetation Classification.
In the 90’s, much of the area over which I had my walk was intensive arable. It was allowed to ‘tumble down’, without seeds sown. The steeper banks had escaped the plough and still supported rabbit-maintained, species-rich chalk grassland. A brilliant source of seed-rain to complement whatever survived in the seed bank.
It didn’t take long for a few shrubs to emerge, hawthorn and ash in the first few years. Native cattle have grazed on-and-off, fairly add hock, usually a few each year.
And now it’s a wonderful spot for birding. The patches of shrubs attract hordes of migrant birds in spring and autumn. A pair of early cuckoos spend a morning hunting between shrub patches, over open grassy areas, this spring. Redstarts and spotted flycatchers love it, especially in August as they move south. In late summer juvenile kestrels congregate over the shrubby grassy slopes, hovering and hanging in the updrafts alongside numerous buzzards and, so far just once, two sea eagles…
The shrub community is pretty wonderful. Field rose, dog wood, wayfaring tree, spindle, hawthorn, blackthorn, bramble, ash emerging from the thickets. The cattle bash around and prune the shrubs whenever they’re around but they flower profusely. Rabbits – not many – install burrows in the shrubby thickets and create wonderfully flower-rich tighter sward lawns between thicker, taller grass tussock patches full of grasshoppers and much loved by migrant whinchats and fledged parties of stone chats.
Dark-green fritillaries, chalk hill blues and even expanding Glanville fritillaries have arrived. Marbled whites are everywhere.
Now, we have about forty percent scattered shrubs at this site. Probably too much for the Attribute Tables but great for wildlife. This grassy-shrubland mosaic is far more exciting than some almost pure chalk grassland SSSIs nearby, from which shrubs are bashed using tractor-mounted flails to please Natural England.
We’re very good at celebrating hedgerows. These linear shrublands must be one of our most researched and maintained habitats. Yes there unruly ‘ugly’ sibling, mosaic shrublands, are every bit as rich, probably more diverse in terms of conditions and resources for wildlife.
It’s time we celebrated shrublands, both as wonderfully rich and exciting habitats in their own right, and as dynamic transitions towards more old growth woodland in the longer term.
Natural Areas 