As a consequence, on and near airfield bird strikes form a substantial flight safety hazard. Recognised problem-species include gulls, pigeons, birds of prey and waders like the Lapwing. Preventative measures include the management of the runway environment in a way that is most adverse to birds. Over time there has been a shift from agricultural co-use of airfields to a long grass regime that is specially geared to reduce bird numbers. This paper focuses on the use of poor grass as an alternative for long grass as ground cover for the runway environment.
Poor grass is defined as a herb-rich grassland of poorer soils.
It is not attractive to birds and due to the more varied an species richer vegetation increases the natural value of the terrain. Modification by man has transformed the European landscape into an environment in which food for opportunistic bird species is plentiful. Bird species like Gulls, Lapwings, Starlings and Corvids have been very successful in exploiting this horn of plenty and numbers increased considerably in the last decades. Their best foraging strategy is to fly around. During these opportunistic flights they nearly always hit a food source, even when flying randomly.