It is Sunday, a day of peace and calm, Radio 3 plays in the background and I wonder what to write about. The words that come to mind are 'ecology grief' . Yesterday I watched a webinair of an articulate small group of people discussing the slow extinction of the curlew. Though here I must add that there are eight different species of the curlew.
Someone only yesterday in America said that there were less birds coming to her feeding trays, it is happening everywhere of course. We would be terribly lost without the song of spring birds, the cuckoo who has made his long journey from the Sahara. The wading birds that line our shorelines and sea marshes. The curlew with its long elegant beak made for probing in soft sand silt, and its bubbling cry that seeks our heart out to acknowledge that all is right with the world. When it definitely isn't.
On F/B I have a group from Wiltshire and the Marlborough Downs, who capture, picture perfect, the brown hares gazing up from a sea of golden wheat, or the bright dark eyes of a roe deer. Yesterday they were tagging birds the bright yellow of yellowhammers and lesser colour of corn buntings.
There is a half-hearted attempt in the farming community, lured of course by extra cash from the government, to plant strips of food and wildflower for these birds of the meadow but of course we have lost the great bulk of wild birds over the last few decades. As they become fewer so breeding and finding a mate becomes more difficult.
Our birds, like butterflies, are like rare jewels in our lives. I remember Andrew saying last week as he showed me the view from his balcony, you can see the kingfisher flying over the river below, and the geese almost flying parallel with the balcony.
Birds are definitely part of the background of our life, we may curse the seagull for the robbing of our chips at the seaside, or the street pigeon for its domination of our towns but it would be a great deal quieter without them. But birds are like us humans, bad and good, we need something to moan at. So when I hear poetry written for them, music played with sadness for their decline I am grateful for all those people who fight for their survival.
A farm in the Yorkshire Dales. - Summer
I enjoyed the little film. Lovely in summer but a different story come winter! Good to see their wildflower meadow - there are still a few of those occurring naturally in these parts, though the best ones are now nature reserves. No Cuckoos close to us, though I did hear one distantly in the spring. I am glad to report plenty of Swifts down in the town (they come hawking for insects up on our hill), lots of Sand Martins nesting in the riverbank down in town too, and up here we have Swallows in the stables, and House Martins (2 nests). I saw a Hare when I was up and about early last Sunday - first I'd seen in about 25 years.
ReplyDeleteI remember as a child turning my pony out into a 'ley'? field full of wild flowers, I suspect it was a bit like a medicine chest.... Glad to hear the regulars still come back to your part of the world, it seems we must keep the world the same always, thank goodness there is enough old houses and barns to provide nesting spaces and of course laws to protect birds when they are breeding.
DeleteI wouldn't sign up to fight against the Russians in Ukraine and I wouldn't sneak across The English Channel in an inflatable boat to fight against The French and I wouldn't head north to fight against the whiny Scots but I would join an army intent on turning back the tide of environmental disaster and I would fight for the curlews, for the lapwings, the starlings and the dippers, the puffins, the albatrosses and the chaffinches.
ReplyDeleteI think you have to fight against the tide of people changing the land Nial. Bird groups can only witness the decline and make us more aware of course, and they do a magnificent job there. Wasn't it Sir David Attenborough that drew our attention to the shrinking natural world?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are a lot less birds than there used to be when I first bought a pair of binoculars and went out to look for them - though it's also true that my eyes aren't as good as they once were. On the other hand lots of new species have appeared in the area.
ReplyDeleteA lot is due to habitat loss isn't it John. The new birds are also seeking different climates due to climate change as well. It would be terrible to lose our favourites, popular birds like wrens, robins and blackbirds. I always used to heave a sigh of relief when I saw the mistle thrush had returned to Normanby.
DeleteThe bird population is declining rapidly, but I am powerless.
ReplyDeleteThere is always the one thing we are good at Joanne and that is nagging till we get what we want ;)
DeleteI have recently read a book called " English Pastoral" ( a book club read!). It talks about the demise of the curlew being partly due to the fact that in the " olden days" the farmer would be walking behind a horse and would spot the nests on the ground and avoid them , but nowadays the big machinery just ploughs over everything in the huge fields.
ReplyDeleteThat of course is one of the problems Frances, the 'efficient' use of farm machinery. The dilemma, feed the people or save the birds?
DeleteThank you for this Rachel - just what I needed this morning, absolutely beautiful. It brought tears but that was so good for me today.
ReplyDeleteThank you Pat, but I am not Rachel;) I put the video of the Yorkshire Dales on specially for you. The Welsh schoolchildren was an added bonus, we should remember there is another cohort of youngsters coming along to fight the good fight.
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