Dear Richard, it is resonant that your writing this week reflects the quiet heart of, the other worldliness of loss and I am touched to think of you waiting for the rooks to grace your reverie. The news coverage this week has lost the simplicity of sorrow and here at Shenmore we are feeling somewhat brainwashed. Your piece bought the Islamic text of the parliament of the birds to mind… I am going out to let nature take my voice and thoughts. Thank you.
One rookery on the eastern edge of Builth. I did the rookery survey earlier in the year for the BTO. My square HAD one a decade or so ago; quite a big one. A friendly farmer showed me where it'd been. But nary a rook there now.
"We don't use pesticides!", he said.
"Ah - but do you use dips and products to kill insects on your sheep?".
Even the cow shit is laced with the systemic 'pour-on' insecticides they use to treat warble flies. That's why you don't see dung-flies any more, and everything that follows down the food chain.
All building timbers are poisoned, though in modern centrally-heated houses woodworm and fungus are not a problem. We seem to care more about the profits of chemical companies than we do about the living world. It isn't sane or sensible or sustainable.
I feel so lucky because I get to watch rooks flying to their roost every night and return to our trees in the morning. Owls call most nights and bats dance the oak. Robins, sparrows, a blackbird haunt a hawthorn by our window. Last winter a charm of goldfinches swooped about.
I have lived on the Marches for over 40 years and have witnessed the decline in wildlife with deep sadness. Plovers in particular.
I love your articles looking forward to them each week. You inform me and keep me in touch.thank you
Dear Richard, it is resonant that your writing this week reflects the quiet heart of, the other worldliness of loss and I am touched to think of you waiting for the rooks to grace your reverie. The news coverage this week has lost the simplicity of sorrow and here at Shenmore we are feeling somewhat brainwashed. Your piece bought the Islamic text of the parliament of the birds to mind… I am going out to let nature take my voice and thoughts. Thank you.
One rookery on the eastern edge of Builth. I did the rookery survey earlier in the year for the BTO. My square HAD one a decade or so ago; quite a big one. A friendly farmer showed me where it'd been. But nary a rook there now.
"We don't use pesticides!", he said.
"Ah - but do you use dips and products to kill insects on your sheep?".
Silence.
Even the cow shit is laced with the systemic 'pour-on' insecticides they use to treat warble flies. That's why you don't see dung-flies any more, and everything that follows down the food chain.
All building timbers are poisoned, though in modern centrally-heated houses woodworm and fungus are not a problem. We seem to care more about the profits of chemical companies than we do about the living world. It isn't sane or sensible or sustainable.
I feel so lucky because I get to watch rooks flying to their roost every night and return to our trees in the morning. Owls call most nights and bats dance the oak. Robins, sparrows, a blackbird haunt a hawthorn by our window. Last winter a charm of goldfinches swooped about.
I have lived on the Marches for over 40 years and have witnessed the decline in wildlife with deep sadness. Plovers in particular.
I love your articles looking forward to them each week. You inform me and keep me in touch.thank you
I was hoping you would like this one. I think you might love the book too
Please tell me about this book as I can't find it
I Could Read the Sky, by Timothy O'Grady with black and white photographs by Steve Pyke, published 1997 by the Harvill Press.
Thank you
What book? I must have missed that. Will look it up on Google