| General : Skylarks helped by 'crop circles' | |  Crop circles could finally have found their niche with news that leaving fallow patches in cereal fields could help reverse a decline in 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).
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