National Meadows Day highlights conservation at the root of survival for Scottish species

TAKING place on the first Saturday of July every year, National Meadows Day is organised by Plantlife – the wild plant conservation charity – and its partners to celebrate meadows and highlight opportunities to help create and preserve them.

It’s an important date in the calendar for Iain Macdonald, who has worked in nature conservation for more than 30 years and is NatureScot’s acknowledged expert on plants. 

Iain works within a small team to promote Scotland’s biodiversity, speaks passionately about meadows, even referencing their inspirational power over artists such as Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh. It’s no surprise, then, he believes National Meadows Day is worth recognising.

“It is a day to celebrate all species-rich grassland, including agricultural grassland, newly created meadows, road verges and canal banks – such as the wonderful grassland along the Caledonian Canal.”

A meadow is an area covered in grass and flowers cut or grazed after the flowers have set seed, he explains. 

“They come in different varieties. This contrasts with permanent pasture, which is grazed by stock – traditionally sheep or cattle but rabbits are also important grazers, and even llamas can be seen in some areas.”

A primary reason for protecting meadows is their role in preserving the biodiversity of species.

“If it’s colourful, it’s good,” says Iain. “The more colours, the more flowers, the better the meadow will be for bees, butterflies and other animals.

“Meadows are one of our most species-rich habitats yet cover less than 1% of the UK.

“More than 700 species of plants put down their roots in grassy meadows, pastures and fields. Meadows, however, are more than plants; they support a large number of fungal and animal species.”

Iain highlights some of the most striking flowers of grassland, including common knapweed, ragged robin, oxeye daisies and many species of orchids.

“A particularly important species is yellow rattle, which is parasitic on other plants,” he says. “It makes life tougher for competitive grasses, making space for other flowers to grow.  Meadows also do best on poorer soils where competitive species have less of an advantage.

“Many flowering plants and pollinating insects used to be very widespread but are now rare because of the decline of meadows in Scotland. 

“These include the great yellow bumblebee, formerly widespread across the UK, but now limited to the north coast and the Northern and Western Isles.”

Another positive aspect of meadows, if perhaps lesser known, is its ability to store carbon.

“Although we know less about carbon storage in grassland than in woodland or peat, grassland soils are a very important carbon store. Studies have suggested unimproved neutral grasslands – those that have not been fertilised and have soil neither acidic nor strongly base-rich – can store much more carbon than arable or improved grassland.”

Left,  a large white butterfly feeds upon the thistles and wildflowers at Battleby, Perthshire © Lorne Gill-NatureScot

Approximately a quarter of the Earth is grassland, therefore the total amount of carbon stored is vast.

The bad news is Plantlife estimates in the UK 97% of species-rich grassland have been lost since the 1930s. Three quarters of remaining meadows are tiny areas, highly fragmented across the landscape, making it difficult for species to move from one meadow to another.

In the past 50 years Scotland has lost nearly 40% of its lowland meadow, as outlined in the current Scottish Biodiversity Strategy consultation.

It is a similar story in the uplands where agricultural management has changed. Areas have been drained, limed and re-seeded.

Areas with seasonal grazing became pasture during the period when flowers are growing and setting seed. In effect, they went from colourful in the summer to green all year round.
Using aerial photographs to compare between 2006/2007 and 2020 a species-rich grassland survey within Badenoch and Strathspey calculated a rate of loss of over 2% per year within Cairngorm National Park. 

The top 20 larger sites fared less well with an average rate of loss of almost 4%. 

The greatest cause of loss in that study is under-management: meadows require cutting or grazing to maintain a high number of species.

Despite these significant challenges, Iain remains confident we can secure a sustainable future for meadows.

“The Scottish Government has just announced a consultation regarding our next Scottish Biodiversity Strategy,” he points out. 

“This recognises the loss of our lowland grassland and identifies grassland as part of our future nature-rich landscape.

“One solution would be to ensure we manage meadows at a landscape-scale through suitable agri-environment funding.”
Work is already apace, thanks to NatureScot, which has provided a grant this year to Plantlife to put together a comprehensive evidence base for species-rich grasslands in Scotland, both protected and unprotected.

“This is really important,” says Iain, “because, if we don’t know where our species-rich grasslands are, we can’t protect them. 

“Plantlife will also be leading on developing an action plan for Scotland’s grasslands.”

NatureScot also manages colourful wildflower meadows at a number of its National Nature Reserves, as well as in the grounds of its Battleby and Inverness offices.  

Meanwhile, the Cairngorms Rare Plants and Wild Connections project, a partnership between Plantlife, NatureScot and Cairngorms National Park is improving five meadows in the Park.

These will showcase good management practices as well as making the Park more colourful.

Iain has his own favourite place to enjoy meadows.
“Greenland Links in Dunnet Bay near Thurso is a favourite, particularly when the tiny Scottish primroses are flowering in June. These only grow in the north of Scotland and nowhere else in the world. It is important to take time to visit a meadow, to experience the sights, sounds and smells.  These inspire me . . . in a meadow my worries fade away.”

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How to roll out the red carpet for pollinators

THE good news is there is a lot of work going on to create new meadows and restore existing grassland.

Plantlife’s online Meadows Hub has guidance on this, while NatureScot’s Scottish Pollinators blog has information on creating meadows.

A Machair meadow at Traigh Hornais, North Uist, Western Isles  © Lorne Gill-NatureScot

It’s timely to mention Plantlife’s Coronation Meadows: 90 new meadows created for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, which have since grown and blossomed. 

You don’t need a farm to do your bit for meadows and the species that rely upon them.  

If you have a garden with a lawn, consider taking part in No Mow May next year. 

Take a break and lock up the lawn mower. Not cutting the lawn will allow flowers to grow, which is important for pollinators. 

Not cutting the lawn, or even a piece of the lawn, after May will allow wildflowers to set seed.  

If you are laying a new lawn, consider not putting down topsoil. Instead sow a wildflower meadow on the poorer soil. The bees will love you for it.

If you have a lawn, don’t want to replace it, but would like it to be better for wildflowers, consider sowing yellow rattle seed. In late summer scratch the surface of the lawn to expose soil and sow the seed. 

This will make the grass less competitive, helping other flowers to become well established.

It is important we are making space for pollinators within urban greenspace so, if you live in a town or city, consider asking the local authority if it might start mowing in the late summer. 

This will allow the grass to look neat and tidy during the winter and colourful when spring finally arrives. 

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Machair: Scotland’s special meadow must be maintained

SCOTLAND is known as the global centre for a unique type of meadow: machair. 

Machair flowers growing on fallow ground on the Isle of Benbecula © Lorne Gill-NatureScot

This species-rich grassland develops on shell-enriched sand, usually facing the North Atlantic where powerful coastal winds have driven sand inland.  

Machair is largely confined to islands off the west coast, but smaller areas exist on the mainland and the Northern Isles. 

The corncrake, a particularly secretive bird, is closely associated with machair, particularly where the meadows and adjacent crops are cut late and there are patches of yellow iris and nettles.