The BBC has recently reported that the British skylark bird has increased in population due to the fortuitous intervention of crop formations…


A report this week on the BBC News Online website (traditionally sceptical towards our favourite phenomenon) suggests that crop circles and other open patches in sown fields may be helping in the recovery of declining numbers of skylarks, those distinctive birds that hover high up with a constant warbling twitter on summer days (an excellent example can be hear at the beginning of the song ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ on Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album).

The report says:

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“Crop circles could finally have found their niche with news that leaving fallow patches in cereal fields could help reverse a decline in UK birdlife. Skylark breeding rose nearly 50% when small patches of cereal fields were left unsown, a two-year study found.

Now farmers are to be offered government subsidies to clear the areas as part of a conservation push. And the trials showed that despite a rise in weeds on the unsown patches, farmers did not lose any yield. Experts say leaving two small patches bare per hectare could reverse a 52% drop in skylark numbers since 1970.

"Crop circles once fascinated the nation; undrilled patches could be the new phenomenon, and one with a worthwhile legacy," said Dr David Gibbons, head of conservation science at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Farmers joining a new scheme in which they are paid £30 per hectare of land are likely to be asked to take part.”

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Given this, perhaps farmers receiving crop circles should stop tearing their hair out and instead start rushing to claim their cash…


The full BBC report can be found at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3783491.stm