Wild Hares and Hummingbirds (2 page)

As a relative newcomer to the village, having moved down from London a few years ago, I must rely on local hearsay for evidence of these shifts in status. But even in my brief time here I have noticed changes. It was over a year before I saw my first raven, calling one autumn morning from the cider orchard alongside my home. Yet now I regularly hear the raven’s deep, harsh croak, as these huge, raggedy-winged birds soar high above the village, into the blue.

I
T WAS
G
ILBERT
W
HITE
, author of
The Natural History of Selborne
(1789), who first showed us that by closely studying the wildlife of a single country parish, it was possible to draw conclusions about our wider relationship with the natural world. Now, more than two centuries later, I am following in his footsteps. By looking in depth at what happens here, in one of more than 10,000 parishes in England alone, I hope to reveal a broader truth about the current fortunes of our countryside, its people and its wildlife.

I stay mostly within the parish boundaries, an area I can comfortably explore on foot, or by bicycle, from my
home
. I do occasionally venture out into the surrounding area, known (to the local tourist board at least) as the Avalon Marshes, which encompasses some of the finest wild countryside in the whole of Britain.

I don’t rely just on my own observations, but also enlist the help of expert naturalists, and hear from people who have lived in the village all their lives. During the course of the year I track the rhythms of the natural world: the comings and goings, the changes brought about by the seasons and the weather, and how these reflect what is going on elsewhere in the country.

This is not an easy time for Britain’s wildlife. Our plants and animals must compete with the many other ways we use our limited supply of land: to grow crops and raise livestock, to build roads and homes for a growing population, and as a place for leisure and recreation. So it is more important than ever that we recognise why we need the natural world: not just for its own sake, but also to enrich our own lives.

I may have chosen to focus on one little patch of the British countryside, in and around my home village. But ultimately this is a book about the nature of Britain as a whole: what the wildlife and the places where it lives mean to every one of us.

STEPHEN MOSS

Mark, Somerset

April 2011

AS THE OLD
year gives way to the new, a hard frost grips the land, coating every surface with a thin layer of white. The rhynes – water-filled ditches that criss-cross this flat, wintry landscape – have frozen solid. But the broader, deeper channel opposite the White Horse Inn still contains a few patches of water and mud. A couple of moorhens are feeding, their long, green toes allowing them to walk across the broken shards of ice.

Nearby, a small, hunched, brown bird with an impossibly long bill is also looking for food, optimistically probing the half-frozen mud. It is a snipe: not a local bird like the moorhens, but an immigrant from northern Europe. Earlier this winter it flew across the North Sea from Scandinavia, in search of a milder climate. It must be wondering why it bothered.

A local cyclist pedals by. The snipe stops feeding, cocks its head to one side, and crouches back on its short legs. At the last possible moment the bird springs up into the air on powerful, pointed wings – its fast, zigzagging flight designed to confuse a chasing predator, or foil a hunter with a shotgun.

As it departs, the snipe utters a curious call, rather like the sound of a muffled sneeze, or perhaps a boot being pulled out of sticky mud – an appropriate image given the bird’s usual habitat. The moorhens, long used to the steady traffic of people along the edge of
the
rhyne, ignore the interruption and continue to feed.

A
T THIS TIME
of year, in the dead of winter, the wildlife of the parish is best defined by what is
not
here, rather than what is – not by presence, but by absence. Four months have passed since the swallows last twittered over the barns at Mill Batch Farm; even longer since the meadows along Vole Road hummed with the sound of bumblebees, and meadowsweet and willowherb blossomed along the narrow lanes towards Chapel Allerton.

This seasonal rhythm is the key to life here, as it is all across the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, from County Kerry in the west to Kamchatka in the east. Those swallows, bumblebees and wild flowers are not simply memories of the year now passed, but a distant promise of the spring and summer yet to come.

It is hard to believe, as I gaze over this monochrome landscape of frost, water and mud, that in just three months’ time the parish will be transformed into a scene of full, glorious colour. There will be myriads of birds and flowers, insects and mammals, all engaged in the frantic race to reproduce which defines spring. This scenario will be replicated, in different ways, across this little cluster of islands, lying just off the edge of the world’s greatest land mass.

But however hard I look now, in the dead of winter, I cannot see most of the plants and animals that make their home here in the village. Some, like the swallows and red admirals, have disappeared altogether, and are now many thousands of miles away. The swallows have travelled the farthest, all the way to the southern tip of Africa. As I and my fellow villagers shiver in the winter cold, they are swooping around the legs of elephants and giraffes, at a muddy waterhole alongside Kipling’s great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River. They will remain there until the time of the spring equinox, when they will begin their long journey northwards, back to our shores.

The red admirals – those visions of elegance in black, white and orange – have not travelled quite so far. They left us back in the autumn, and flew south to the shores of the Mediterranean. There in Andalucía, home of sherry, bullfighting and flamenco, they laid their eggs; then, their mission complete, they died. Now, in the midst of our winter, their caterpillars have already emerged under warm Spanish skies, and are feeding voraciously on fresh green nettles. Soon they will pupate, and eventually, in a month or two, emerge as the next generation of adult butterflies. These, in turn, will head northwards in April; and with luck, and a following wind, will be back here in the village gardens by the end of May.

But what of the badgers and beetles, slow-worms and small tortoiseshells, newts and bats? These creatures lack both the ability and instinct to make the epic global
journey
of the swallow or red admiral, and must stay put for the winter. Each is now well out of sight: either in full hibernation, or simply lying low until spring finally comes, and it can resume its active life.

The badgers hide away in their underground setts, occasionally emerging to grub up earthworms and beetles to keep up their energy levels. The slow-worms, frogs and newts are tucked inside log-piles, deep in hibernation, having slowed down their metabolism close to zero for the duration of the winter. And the small tortoiseshell butterflies? They have sought out nooks and crannies in woodsheds and garages, closing their wings to hide their colourful pattern, to avoid being found and eaten by a passing wood mouse. They will remain there, torpid and motionless, until a sunny day in March, when their wings will once again unfold and take to the air, delighting those of us who are searching for signs of spring.

Yet despite the temporary disappearance of these creatures, and the bleakness of the hard, frozen landscape, there are still some signs of life. Flocks of lapwings fly over the village centre, their strong, rounded wings giving them the look of butterfly swimmers as they surge through the still, cold air. And in the tall ash trees that emerge from this horizontal landscape like city skyscrapers, glossy blue-black rooks are already inspecting last year’s nests. Some carry twigs in their beaks, to make repairs, ready to lay their clutch of three or four greenish-blue eggs early in the New Year – well before the leaves are on the trees.

Along the lanes leading out of the village, fieldfares and redwings throng the hedgerows, greedily gulping down the last remaining berries. These smart, colourful thrushes are winter visitors, who arrived last autumn from the north and east, in search of food. Food is also the top priority for the sparrows, robins, tits and finches congregating in the centre of the village, where my fellow parishioners generously provide kitchen scraps, nuts and seeds to keep the birds alive at this difficult time.

Whether these small birds survive the winter depends on two things: the prevailing weather pattern – either mild and damp, or cold and snowy – and the food and water we provide. Only when spring finally comes will we in the parish, and in towns and villages throughout Britain, discover the fate of these, some of our best-loved wild creatures.

T
HE PARISH CHURCH
is by far the tallest and most impressive building in the village – a landmark visible from every corner of the parish, and often beyond. It is the oldest of our man-made structures: dating back to just before the Norman Conquest, when the village itself is first mentioned in historical documents, although the building was restored and rebuilt between the late fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Today, the church tower sports a large clock, installed for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee
in
1887; and a fine set of bells, which still ring for weddings and parish festivals.

Whenever the solid grey tower hoves into view, I imagine one of our ancestors using it to find his way through this flat, and often featureless, landscape. Walking the dozen miles from Brent Knoll to Glastonbury Tor, he would have passed just to the west and south of the church, before heading out across the bleak wastes of Tealham and Tadham Moors, his feet splashing through the flooded fields as he passed. Continuing through the ancient settlements of Meare and Godney, he would finally reach the safety of high ground, on the tor itself.

The church still plays an important part in the life of the village community. In the hallowed ground surrounding the building, a scattering of gravestones marks the resting places of the ancestors of many of today’s villagers. The names carved here – many so weathered as to be almost illegible – are a tribute to the longevity of the main local families. There are Puddys and Pophams, Ducketts and Fears – with no fewer than ten members of the latter family buried beneath a single, imposing headstone.