I had a startling demonstration of the lack of life in our countryside a few years ago in Poland. Standing in one spot I could simultaneously hear or see four different birds that are very rare in England now. Here, I would have had to search them out over places far apart over the course of a year or two.
Just half an hour away from your prairie I finished a bout of gardening at 4pm yesterday, left the evening fragrances and bird life to go indoors. I was up again at 7.30 this morning hanging washing on the line assailed by the unmistakeable stench of chicken manure. Are local farmers reduced to spreading the muck that pollutes the local river at dead of night?
Here, too, further upstream on the Wye, it's devoid of wildlife. My wildflowers have had very VERY few butterflies visiting. The wild bees underground in my orchard didn't survive 38.4'C. If it wasn't for the bumbles, there'd be nothing. The dawn chorus... so glad we still have robins and blackbirds...
I had a startling demonstration of the lack of life in our countryside a few years ago in Poland. Standing in one spot I could simultaneously hear or see four different birds that are very rare in England now. Here, I would have had to search them out over places far apart over the course of a year or two.
You don't say what they were but I'm guessing these were birds that were previously widespread in the UK? Before farming did for them..
Just half an hour away from your prairie I finished a bout of gardening at 4pm yesterday, left the evening fragrances and bird life to go indoors. I was up again at 7.30 this morning hanging washing on the line assailed by the unmistakeable stench of chicken manure. Are local farmers reduced to spreading the muck that pollutes the local river at dead of night?
Yes, and at the moment they are all going out at night to spray insecticide on the Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle
Here, too, further upstream on the Wye, it's devoid of wildlife. My wildflowers have had very VERY few butterflies visiting. The wild bees underground in my orchard didn't survive 38.4'C. If it wasn't for the bumbles, there'd be nothing. The dawn chorus... so glad we still have robins and blackbirds...
It’s a bugger isn’t it?
Thanks for the Cargil link in your previous "Know your enemy" article. It was very enlightening.
Rather too enlightening I thought!