Improving the environmental performance of grazing is a key issue for sustainable livestock systems in Europe. In grasslands, grazing is a major driver of habitat quality which is crucial to the survival of threatened ground nesting bird species. Our objective is to investigate how cattle grazing may be used to sustain bird biodiversity by creating suitable habitats without penalizing farmers. We develop a model that described the temporal dynamics of (1) a grass sward controlled by grazing where the efficiency of grazing depends on technical and economical constraints linked to feeding costs for farmers and (2) a community of three bird species formalised using an age-structured matrix model that incorporates the impact of habitat quality, measured by sward height, on the vital rates of each species. The results show that grazing is a key component to prevent extinction of bird community. In absence of grazing the growth of sward during spring does not allow the development of a favourable sward structure. According to habitat quality targeted (optimal or sub optimal) different grazing strategies emerge and some are more cost-effective than others. Our results are discussed in the light of agri-environment schemes aimed at bird conservation in Europe and highlight the need to develop integrated modelling approaches linking agricultural and conservation issues