CIGL2Winter bird food on improved grassland

What it actually is

You take areas of improved grassland and manage them so the grass is allowed to run up and seed. Cutting for silage or hay happens in a way that permits seed production, and once cut, the area is left ungrazed, so the seed stands into the autumn and winter for farmland birds to feed on. Existing grassland already managed this way, and not funded by another scheme, can come in.

GOV.UK's stated aim is maintained improved grassland that seeds naturally during autumn and winter, providing food for farmland birds through the colder months.

The advice on the page fills in the practical shape: leave the grass uncut and ungrazed through the summer so seed forms, with perennial ryegrass able to take cutting or grazing until late May and Italian or hybrid ryegrass until late June before being left; site it where the sward is at least half ryegrass; and spread the areas across the farm, half hectare blocks across a hundred hectares being the page's own illustration, near hedgerows or in the open to suit different species. The action is rotational or static, and it is one of the limited area actions.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL2 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page. Multiplied out:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date. The 4 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

No seed, no drilling, no new kit, so the cost of this action is all in what the grass would otherwise have been.

The forage you give up. Grass left to head and seed is grass past its best as feed. A first cut delayed until seed has set is a bulkier, stemmier, lower quality cut than the May silage it replaces, and the ungrazed aftermath is keep you cannot use for the rest of the season. On a farm tight for forage, that is the real price, and it is different on every farm: the value of the lost grazing days and the feed value difference between early and late cut silage on the entered hectares. Price your own, because nobody else can.

Who finds it cheap. Farms with more grass than stock, ground already cut late, fields the rotation half forgets. If some of your grassland already gets one late cut and little else, this action pays its full rate for something close to what already happens, and the existing-grassland allowance says as much.

Who finds it dear. Intensive dairy and beef ground where every hectare's early cuts and aftermath grazing are counted. Three good silage cuts and grazed aftermath are worth more than the payment on well-managed ground, which is fine, because that is not the ground this action wants.

This reasoning is Tilth's own and adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. The rate comparison with your forage is your own sum.

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. We have named every source and given the date we checked it. What it means for your ground is your decision.

The fit here is unusually close. Conservation Evidence assess Leave uncut strips of rye grass on silage fields, which is this action's practice in strip form: ryegrass on silage ground allowed to seed for birds. The assessed version is strips left uncut or cut once; CIGL2 pays for blocks or areas cut in a way that permits seeding, then left. Not identical, but the same grass doing the same job for the same birds.

The graded assessment. Conservation Evidence, based at the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, summarises the published studies behind individual conservation actions and has independent subject experts score each one. Leaving uncut strips of rye grass on silage fields comes out at Likely to be beneficial, on 6 studies, with 80 per cent for effectiveness, 49 per cent for certainty, and harms not assessed. Effectiveness scores only the size and direction of the reported effects, and they say themselves it does not consider the quantity or quality of the studies. Certainty is the separate score for how many studies there are, how well built they are and how much ground they cover, and 49 per cent on 6 studies is a thin base, which is worth carrying alongside the encouraging direction.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 132, Leave uncut strips of rye grass on silage fields, Farmland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026. Cite as Dicks et al. (2020), Farmland Conservation, pages 283 to 321, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers.

What the studies found. Two reviews and two replicated controlled trials from the UK found leaving uncut ryegrass on silage fields benefited birds, including increased numbers. The finding with the most direct bearing on this action's design: seed-eating birds preferred ryegrass cut once only, while birds feeding on other resources, insect eaters among them, showed more variable results, some preferring plots cut two or more times. A review of livestock farm experiments found seed-eating birds in winter only present in any numbers on plots left unmown, and more abundant on ungrazed plots than grazed ones. On the invertebrate side, a replicated, randomised Scottish study of silage field headlands found no difference in ground beetle abundance or diversity between cut and uncut ground in the first two years, and higher species diversity in the uncut plots by the third year.

Conservation Evidence say themselves that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value, and that study size, design, reported metrics and relevance to your own situation matter more than "simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation".

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 132, key messages and supporting evidence from individual studies, checked 23/08/2026.

What we have not found. Anything measuring CIGL2 itself, or blocks as against strips. No study of how much seed different cutting dates actually leave standing, which is the practical heart of the requirement. And nothing on the half-ryegrass siting advice or the spacing advice, which come from the guidance rather than the studies.

What the sources say makes it work better. Three findings transfer directly. Cut once, not more: the seed eaters preferred once-cut ryegrass, which is in effect the regime this action pays for. Leave it ungrazed: the winter seed eaters were more abundant on ungrazed plots, which is the action's own requirement measured. And give it time: the beetle diversity gain only showed in the third year, which suits a three year action and gently argues for keeping the blocks static rather than moving them.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 132, key messages and supporting evidence from individual studies, checked 23/08/2026.

What follows is Tilth's own reading of how those findings sit against this action, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The design of this action tracks its evidence more closely than most: the studies found once-cut, ungrazed, seeded ryegrass fed wintering birds, and once-cut, ungrazed, seeded ryegrass is what the requirement produces. Where we would counsel modest expectations is the size of the base, six studies with a 49 per cent certainty score, and the winter-food logic itself, which this site's arable winter bird food pages cover in depth: standing seed runs out, and the hungry gap in late winter is when birds need it most. Ryegrass seed shed by February feeds nobody in March. That is not a reason against the action; it is a reason to see it as part of the farm's winter larder alongside hedges and other cover rather than the whole of it.

The rotational option deserves a thought before it is used. The one invertebrate gain in the evidence arrived in year three of ground staying put, and a block that moves every year restarts that clock. The birds will find moving seed; the beetles build where the ground settles. If nothing on the farm forces movement, static is the evidence's preference.

What you actually have to do

Maintain the entered grassland by management that can reasonably be expected to achieve the action's aim: cut for silage or hay in a way that permits seed production, and leave cut areas ungrazed afterwards, so the grass seeds naturally and the seed stands for birds through autumn and winter. Existing grassland managed this way, and not funded under another environmental scheme, can be entered. If the action is static, begin within 12 months of the start date and continue each year; if rotational, complete the management each year for periods that can reasonably achieve the aim. Do this for each year of the three year duration.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL2 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

The advice, as advice rather than requirement: leave the grass uncut and ungrazed through the summer to let seed form, with perennial ryegrass workable until late May and Italian or hybrid ryegrass until late June before leaving; site the blocks where the sward is at least 50 per cent perennial, Italian or hybrid ryegrass; spread them evenly across the farm, with the page's own example half hectare blocks across a hundred hectares, placed near hedgerows or in the open to suit different birds; and keep foot and vehicle traffic off after cutting, so the sward does not mat and the seed stays reachable.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL2 action page, advice sections, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go, and what rules it out

Temporary grassland under TG01 and improved permanent grassland under PG01, below the moorland line, registered and declared with compatible codes. The siting advice points at ryegrass-rich swards, which is what improved grassland mostly is.

CIGL2 is one of the ten limited area actions under SFI26, sharing the 25 per cent ceiling on your farm's total agricultural area with CIPM2, CAHL1, CAHL2, CAHL3, CIGL1, WBD3, AHW7, AHW9 and AHW11. How the 25 per cent limit works.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL2 action page, checked 23/08/2026, and GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, section 4.5, checked 23/08/2026.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The cutting date is the whole action. Seed has to form before the mower comes, and a habit-driven May cut on the entered blocks is the easiest way to fail this action without noticing. The blocks need marking in whatever plan the silage contractor works from, because the person on the mower is the person delivering the requirement.

Aftermath grazing is the habit to break. Cut it, then leave it, is an unnatural sequence on a stock farm, and an autumn of sheep across the entered blocks undoes the requirement. Same answer as the corners action next door: fencing, or blocks in fields the stock do not reach.

Check the sward before you promise it. The advice wants half the sward in ryegrass because ryegrass seed is the food on offer. Old, diverse or clover-heavy swards seed differently, and a block that cannot deliver a head of seed is a block in the wrong action, whatever the map says.

Feed budget first. The cost of this action is forage, and it arrives in a lump at first cut. A farm that enters blocks in spring and discovers in a dry August that it needs every bale is a farm that will be tempted out of compliance by its own cows. Enter what the winter feed budget can spare in a bad year, not a good one.

Watch the traffic after cutting. The matting advice is easy to forget when the entered block is the handy way to the far gateway. Flattened seeded grass feeds fewer birds, and quad tracks through a block are the kind of thing photographs remember.

It counts against the 25 per cent. Same sum as the rest of the limited area actions before anything is promised.

Keeping the evidence

Also Tilth's own reading. GOV.UK sets the requirements; what follows is a practical suggestion about record keeping.

GOV.UK's examples are field operation records at parcel level with invoices, and photographs or other supporting materials.

The record that matters is the cutting date on the entered blocks, because it proves the seed-permitting regime, and the absence of grazing afterwards, which a dated photograph of standing seeded grass in autumn shows better than anything written. One photograph per block, once in late summer with the seed heads standing and once in winter with the birds' larder in view, plus the cutting record, is the whole file.

Tilth records cutting operations against the parcel with dates, and lets you attach photographs to the field, so the dates and the pictures keep themselves.

The part only your own ground can answer

What a hectare of late-cut, ungrazed grass costs your winter feed budget, because that number against the payment is the entire decision, and it swings from nearly nothing on an understocked farm to more than the payment on a tight one. Your own cutting records and stock numbers hold the answer. Tilth keeps your fields, your cuts and your stock in one place, which is where that sum wants doing. Request an invite.