Hedges Cutting in August?

Edg3

Hey guys

Today I spotted a farmer out in the fields butchering the hedgerow and trimming them back.
I'm no farmer or expect on this but I was sure they werent allowed start doing this until September 1st til the end of February.
There are still alot of small birds nesting in the trees, as everything seems to have started a little late this year. (Im a nature photographer)

I was wondering, who can I contact about this? I dont know the farmer in the area as the land has changed hands alot recently and is probably rented out right now. I seen a good few Wrens being disturbed by it and not only that but the large chunks of timber are being flung 100ft across a rural road where people often walk, also making it extremely dangerous.

Thanks.

bob charles

roadside hedges can be cut at anytime under some visibility clause. I actually don't think it does any harm to birds in the first place as none of them nest that high. Anyway how do they know its the 31 of August and that its just about to be open season for hedge cutting

Edg3

Hes cutting the hedge on the inside of the field not the road side, sorry should have said that
hes also not cutting the tops off hes cutting them back.

6600

I'm confused, where do all the birds nest between September and April?? How come they don't all get annihilated by the horrible farmers cutting hedges then? If someone knocked my house down in the middle of winter I'd definitely freeze to death.

bob charles

Edg3 wrote: »

Hes cutting the hedge on the inside of the field not the road side, sorry should have said that
hes also not cutting the tops off hes cutting them back.

there maybe a few reasons for this, is the field after having a crop of grain cut off it. If so it maybe drilled in the next few days with Oilseed Rape and once drilled there would be no chance of maintaining the hedges, otherwise maybe he is cutting overgrowth back off a electric stock fence if its a grass field. probably a few other reasons aswell. I see our local county council just apply a non selective herbicide to the sides of the roads before taring, the ignorant gits

tim04750

Was he doin' a neat job ? Hard to get a clean cut this day of the year.

GERMAN ROCKS

Edg3 wrote: »

Hey guys

Today I spotted a farmer out in the fields butchering the hedgerow and trimming them back.
I'm no farmer or expect on this but I was sure they werent allowed start doing this until September 1st til the end of February.
There are still alot of small birds nesting in the trees, as everything seems to have started a little late this year. (Im a nature photographer)

I was wondering, who can I contact about this? I dont know the farmer in the area as the land has changed hands alot recently and is probably rented out right now. I seen a good few Wrens being disturbed by it and not only that but the large chunks of timber are being flung 100ft across a rural road where people often walk, also making it extremely dangerous.

Thanks.

who will you be contacting about what? how is this affecting you exactly? im sure the farmer isnt doing it for the fun off it.

brian_t

I presume you would contact your local County Council.

Bit surprised by some of the replies here. Personally I wouldn't start cutting hedges before the 1st of September.

6600 wrote: »

I'm confused, where do all the birds nest between September and April?? How come they don't all get annihilated by the horrible farmers cutting hedges then? If someone knocked my house down in the middle of winter I'd definitely freeze to death.

I think birds build nests for raising their young rather then for living in over the winter.:cool:

Username John

Edg3 wrote: »

Hey guys

Today I spotted a farmer out in the fields butchering the hedgerow and trimming them back.
I'm no farmer or expect on this but I was sure they werent allowed start doing this until September 1st til the end of February.
There are still a lot of small birds nesting in the trees, as everything seems to have started a little late this year. (Im a nature photographer)

I was wondering, who can I contact about this? I dont know the farmer in the area as the land has changed hands alot recently and is probably rented out right now. I seen a good few Wrens being disturbed by it and not only that but the large chunks of timber are being flung 100ft across a rural road where people often walk, also making it extremely dangerous.

Thanks.

Hello Edg3,

A lot of the road side verges around here have been cut, with the council cutting some of them. Is there an earlier date for roadside ditches?

Anyway - you say your farmer is cutting them in the field, and you ask who to contact. Well, I would say contact the farmer, try to find out who owns / rents it. I would think it wouldn't be that hard - call to a few houses locally. I imagine you may have a good relationship with farmers in the area - if you are taking wildlife / nature photos on their farms.
I am not sure what 'official dept' to contact - I guess it would be the council. But chat with the farmer in question first.

I appreciate the farmer may be cutting the ditches too early - but you wont lose anything by chatting with them, to see why they did it, were they aware of the date (ignorance is no excuse, but if they genuinely didn't know it may influence your decision to go to the council)

Silvics

Just another case of where there needs to be a relaxation of rules tied to calendar. There's been exceptional rain and hedges are bursting out all over the place. A bit of a trim here and there is not going to annihilate birds. It's a bit like the prohibition on burning mountain land-one rarely gets an extended dry period in which to burn, so once the no-burn season kicks in, one gets an increase in heather and thus a lessening in use and quality of land, and a displacement of some bird species.
Flexibility, discretion and a little common sense are badly needed in all of these.
I read where studies of hedging on REPS farms showed little or no evidence of the expected increase in either bird diversity or plant diversity.
The rules are there, now we need to adjust and fine tune them. The one-size-fits-all mentality doesn't work.

Birdnuts

Silvics wrote: »

I read where studies of hedging on REPS farms showed little or no evidence of the expected increase in either bird diversity or plant diversity.
The rules are there, now we need to adjust and fine tune them. The one-size-fits-all mentality doesn't work.

Depends on the age of the hedge - older hedges support more wildlife then recently planted ones(most REPS hedges fall into the latter category). If their properly maintained they will prove valuble into the future in that respect.

As regards the arguement for allowing the "trimming" of hedges during the closed season which is from March 1 to Aug 31(policed mainly by the NPWS) for none roadside hedges - it would be impossible to police since one mans defination of a light trim could be another ones act of butchery(and I've seen too many of the latter over the years!!:(.

Tora Bora

Edg3 wrote: »

Hey guys

Today I spotted a farmer out in the fields butchering the hedgerow and trimming them back.
I'm no farmer or expect on this but I was sure they werent allowed start doing this until September 1st til the end of February.
There are still alot of small birds nesting in the trees, as everything seems to have started a little late this year. (Im a nature photographer)

I was wondering, who can I contact about this? I dont know the farmer in the area as the land has changed hands alot recently and is probably rented out right now. I seen a good few Wrens being disturbed by it and not only that but the large chunks of timber are being flung 100ft across a rural road where people often walk, also making it extremely dangerous.

Thanks.

More in your line, to photograph the zillions, and zillions of ragwort growing on every roadside ditch, motorway sides and centres, NAMA properties, twon and city green areas, etc and report them to your the aithorothies.

Silvics

Birdnuts wrote: »

Depends on the age of the hedge - older hedges support more wildlife then recently planted ones(most REPS hedges fall into the latter category). If their properly maintained they will prove valuble into the future in that respect.

As regards the arguement for allowing the "trimming" of hedges during the closed season which is from March 1 to Aug 31(policed mainly by the NPWS) for none roadside hedges - it would be impossible to police since one mans defination of a light trim could be another ones act of butchery(and I've seen too many of the latter over the years!!:(.

Fair points. However we are increasingly policed by officials with a teddy-bears-picnic view of agriculture, which is eminently divorced from reality and the realities of nature.
More birds and small animals would be protected if the people's pet cats were outlawed.

bob charles

and the good old house owner is allowed to trim all the hedges around their property whatever the date, but sure no birds would nest in a whitethorn hedge on the perimeter of a site for a house

brian_t

bob charles wrote: »

and the good old house owner is allowed to trim all the hedges around their property whatever the date, but sure no birds would nest in a whitethorn hedge on the perimeter of a site for a house

There is a bit of a difference between a hand held garden hedge trimmer and a tractor mounted hedge cutter.

Atilathehun

Edg3 wrote: »

Hey guys

Today I spotted a farmer out in the fields butchering the hedgerow and trimming them back.
I'm no farmer or expect on this but I was sure they werent allowed start doing this until September 1st til the end of February.
There are still alot of small birds nesting in the trees, as everything seems to have started a little late this year. (Im a nature photographer)

I was wondering, who can I contact about this? I dont know the farmer in the area as the land has changed hands alot recently and is probably rented out right now. I seen a good few Wrens being disturbed by it and not only that but the large chunks of timber are being flung 100ft across a rural road where people often walk, also making it extremely dangerous.

Thanks.

As you are a nature photographer, and you "spotted" a farmer in a field, I hope you too a good picture of him, as he will soon be an endangered species, given the prevailing weather and the stupid rules and regs coming from the do gooders in Europe.

We had plenty good weather and ground conditions to spread slurry last January, but couldn't do so because of the dickhead regulations.
Now we are forced to spread, to get tanks empty before the next deadline date. Result is the rain is simply washing the stuff into the groundwater.

Atilathehun

brian_t wrote: »

bob charles wrote: »

and the good old house owner is allowed to trim all the hedges around their property whatever the date, but sure no birds would nest in a whitethorn hedge on the perimeter of a site for a house

There is a bit of a difference between a hand held garden hedge trimmer and a tractor mounted hedge cutter.

Regs say nothing about what kind of equipment can be used to cut the hedges.

Farmer can't do it with a scissors, never mind a tractor mounted job.
On the other hand there is no stop at all put on the guy in suburbia from cutting with any kind of tool, manual or mechanical.

TUBBY

Heres an example of hedgecutting and a side tracking story.

Good friend of mine has fence along a roadside for about a mile where an eircom wire goes along ditch over it.

Few neighbours started getting ticking on their lines and interference which was found to be due to fence. Eircom rather than fix the problem kept annoying him to fix his fence which was showing no sign of leakage on the fence tester. He tried to source the problem but no obvious earth.
Hedge as most are was starting to come very close to fence in good few places.

HE COULD NOT TRIM BACK THE HEDGE AS THE SAME NEIGHBOURS WOULD BE ON TO THE COUNCIL LIKE THE OP HERE.

eircom then threatened to get him to move or turn off his fence as they had that power.

After ages trying to source it and ringing the neighbours when he did a stretch of the fence to see if the ticking had stopped, they eventually found it to be a handpiece from one fence to another was arcing to the line which was no more than 4-5ft over the electric fence. This would have been solved by just rising the line with the addition of a pole.

Anyway moral of my story is - why is the farmer expected to work by calendar rules etc but if there was a genuine earth due to growth on the fence, he could not do anything about it til 1st Sept.
If that was the case, he would have eircom on his back and worse still pissed off neighbours. Rules contradict one another and make farmers the enemy because of it.

END OF RANT:)

Birdnuts

Atilathehun wrote: »

We had plenty good weather and ground conditions to spread slurry last January, but couldn't do so because of the dickhead regulations.
Now we are forced to spread, to get tanks empty before the next deadline date. Result is the rain is simply washing the stuff into the groundwater.

Some rules/regs make sense, others don't(like the one you've just cited) - thats the way with everything from speed limits to laws concerning the sale of fresh food and everything in between. But each law should be argued on its own particular merits to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Atilathehun

Birdnuts wrote: »

Atilathehun wrote: »

We had plenty good weather and ground conditions to spread slurry last January, but couldn't do so because of the dickhead regulations.
Now we are forced to spread, to get tanks empty before the next deadline date. Result is the rain is simply washing the stuff into the groundwater.

Some rules/regs make sense, others don't(like the one you've just cited) - thats the way with everything from speed limits to laws concerning the sale of fresh food and everything in between. Buts its important not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Year in year out it (the slurry rule) is proven to be competely inappropriate. Yet still, the system cannot / will not change it.
That's the same system which makes the hedge cutting rules.
No credibility.

Birdnuts

Atilathehun wrote: »

Year in year out it (the slurry rule) is proven to be competely inappropriate. Yet still, the system cannot / will not change it.
.

I know and I've had the same arguement with my own REPS planner over the slurry issue - it reflects the straight jacket nature of both the Dept of Ag and the EU which often leads to very destructive outcomes for the rural environment, farmers and other countryside interests.:(

1chippy

lads realistically most of these rules need a lot of tinkering to suit various land types and farming situations. they have to be there to try and make some sort of impact against the few arses that mess things up for the rest of us. Its just a balancing act that needs to be tweaked. a lad up my way just emptied a full slurry tank right beside a river when he got the tractor stuck, rather than get someone to tow him out it was easier to loose the load and f*k the consequences. the thing here is he shouldnt have been dragging it out through wet ground he has plenty of dry land which would have been more suitable, however he has to get it out before the deadline, maybe on years like this exemptions should be made for these sort of instances.

Silvics

TUBBY wrote: »

Heres an example of hedgecutting and a side tracking story.

Good friend of mine has fence along a roadside for about a mile where an eircom wire goes along ditch over it.

Few neighbours started getting ticking on their lines and interference which was found to be due to fence. Eircom rather than fix the problem kept annoying him to fix his fence which was showing no sign of leakage on the fence tester. He tried to source the problem but no obvious earth.
Hedge as most are was starting to come very close to fence in good few places.

HE COULD NOT TRIM BACK THE HEDGE AS THE SAME NEIGHBOURS WOULD BE ON TO THE COUNCIL LIKE THE OP HERE.

eircom then threatened to get him to move or turn off his fence as they had that power.

After ages trying to source it and ringing the neighbours when he did a stretch of the fence to see if the ticking had stopped, they eventually found it to be a handpiece from one fence to another was arcing to the line which was no more than 4-5ft over the electric fence. This would have been solved by just rising the line with the addition of a pole.

Anyway moral of my story is - why is the farmer expected to work by calendar rules etc but if there was a genuine earth due to growth on the fence, he could not do anything about it til 1st Sept.
If that was the case, he would have eircom on his back and worse still pissed off neighbours. Rules contradict one another and make farmers the enemy because of it.

END OF RANT:)

Eircom in whatever past incarnation it was, placed a line of poles on the verge right next to the fence line of a plantation on the family farm. Over the years the poles leaned back over my land and they wanted the trees cut to stop them touching the lines.
I refused pointing out that their trespass, and said I'd organize a campaign to get them to pay compensation to landowners for poles on/crossing property, just like the ESB has to stomp up.
This year they moved the line to the other side of the road.

brian_t

Atilathehun wrote: »

Year in year out it (the slurry rule) is proven to be competely inappropriate. Yet still, the system cannot / will not change it.
That's the same system which makes the hedge cutting rules.
No credibility.

The slurry rule is completely different to the hedge cutting rule.

The spreading of slurry is very much weather dependent. The nesting period of birds is not.

The hedge cutting rule is simply no cutting during the nesting period March to August.
It doesn't matter whether this period is cold or hot or wet or dry it will always be the nesting period.

johngalway

brian_t wrote: »

March to August.

I think you may mean September there. Though it always tickles me when people say August.

Edg3

Wow nice work boards for not letting me know there were replies.

Ok, let me try and cover everything I read.

1) Its an old hedge, been there, long as I remember, its dense and supports alot of wildlife.
2) I'm ok with them trimming as I know the rules for keeping it tidy after a harvest.
3) Hes milling it out of it, like i said, its dangerous, theres CHUNKS of wood about a foot long and maybe half an inch to an inch wide flying across the road, at walking level with high velocity.
4) I feel sorry for the farmers this year, they've been seriously screwed over by the weather.
5) My main issue is due to the fact that hes cutting so low and so aggressively he is either killing birds, young ones and/or destroying nests. Ive seen them trimming the tops off the hedges they cut earlier in the year, nothing up there bar some crappy looking branches.

As for whoever asked me what business it is of mine? I'm a member of birdwatch ireland, I have been for a long time, Im also a photographer and someone who hates to see animals getting hurt/mistreated. If hes cutting dangerously its my business to report it. If a chunk of the timber hes butchering hit someone on the road and injured them am I meant to say "Its not my business." He has no guard on the cutters (not sure the name of them) therefore hes putting people in danger. Now as far as I know there are no birds on the protected list here in Ireland but I know their not meant to be cutting, least not til September. Ive noticed birds this year have still got young in the nest which is very unusual for this time of year (especially the housemartins on the gable end of my house, who still havent left the nest). Im just worried that ONE his dangerous trimming is putting people in danger and TWO hes demolishing bird nests.

Also, I didnt say I was going to report him, I just wanted to know if I could contact someone about it, CoCo seems like the right crowd to call though, I dont want to get him in trouble, I just want to know if hes in the right. I'm not a farmer, I dont know the rules, only what Ive heard here and there and I just want to clarify it.

Edg3

Tora Bora wrote: »

More in your line, to photograph the zillions, and zillions of ragwort growing on every roadside ditch, motorway sides and centres, NAMA properties, twon and city green areas, etc and report them to your the aithorothies.

I have actually been doing that as my road is full of them and so far Ive yet to hear a single thing back from them or actually have anyone do anything about them. This year the ditches werent trimmed back and theres some seriously high and overgrown areas of Ragwort in the area around here. Whoever has been "trimming" the roads around here has been doing a terribly messy job of it this year, probably someone on discount, at one stage we had to get out of the car to move chunks of debris off the road so we could drive along it because of the mess left. He never returned to tidy up the road either. It used to be a local farmer who trimmed the roads but hes been ill as of late and was unable to do it this year.

brian_t

johngalway wrote: »

I think you may mean September there. Though it always tickles me when people say August.

No I meant August. You are allowed cut hedges in September.

johngalway

brian_t wrote: »

No I meant August. You are allowed cut hedges in September.

To August means when you get to August you can cut. But you can't cut any day in August so it's September.

Birdnuts

Edg3 wrote: »

. Now as far as I know there are no birds on the protected list here in Ireland but I know their not meant to be cutting, least not til September. .

All bird species and their active nests are protected under Irish and EU law - barring certain game birds in season and a handfull of pigeon and crow species that can be shot/trapped if damaging crops etc.

PS: There have been several threads over the years in the Nature and Birdwatching forum in regards to hedge cutting and the law, so your probably better off finding the info you need there.

brian_t

johngalway wrote: »

To August means when you get to August you can cut. But you can't cut any day in August so it's September.

You didn't read my post properly.

I said

"The hedge cutting rule is simply no cutting during the nesting period March to August."