This is why there's piles of cut grass all over parks in Milton Keynes this week

Haymaking is going on this week in parks all over Milton Keynes to feed livestock and encourage biodiversity.

The Parks Trust and their farming partners carry out hay cutting every year, first cutting then bailing up grass that has been allowed to grow long.

It has to be carried out at the right time, when there are sufficient nutrients in the grass for it to be used as food for animals during the winter months.

A Parks Trust spokesman said: " For hundreds of years, collecting and storing sufficient hay for the lean winter months used to mean the difference between life and death for cattle and sheep and often for the survival of the farm. Now we have access to other foods to supplement their diet, but it is more environmentally responsible to feed them on locally grown grass."

But there's another important reason for haymaking too, said the spokesman.

"We also cut hay for biodiversity reasons. Our hay meadows have been sown with native wildflowers. This helps provide much needed food for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, species that are increasingly under threat.

"Mowing the land and removing the hay reduces nitrate levels released into the soil and over the years encourages wild flowers to compete with the nitrate hungry grass."