To round off the week, Mark Ward - editor-in-chief of Nature's Home magazine - shows the love for what he doesn't want to lose to climate change.
What will I miss? I’ll miss the seasons and those magical moments in nature that tell me a new season has arrived.
I’ll miss the first sighting of a sulphur-yellow brimstone butterfly flashing through my garden in March. I’ll miss baby blackbirds hopping on my lawn in May. I’ll miss swallows gathering on telephone wires in September before heading to Africa and I’ll miss the sight of a flock of pink-footed geese, fresh in from Iceland for winter, calling gently to one another as they fly south overhead.
These natural events mark the passing of the weeks and the transition of the seasons for me – not a calendar. These are the things I look for and these are the things I want my children to look for – and experience the same thrill over. That’s why I’m showing the love this Valentine’s Day.
I’ll miss knowing that the third week of March is when I can expect to find my first wheatear of the year flashing its white rump on the field next to my house. I’ll miss searching for my first large red damselfly of the year by my pond in April. I’ll miss the badgers bringing their cubs to my garden every June. I’ll miss that magical October morning when the sky is full of “chuckling” fieldfares fresh in from Scandinavia. I’ll miss those freezing January days when ice covers the gravel pits and I know that skulking bitterns will come out from their reedbed homes to find holes to fish in.
Climate change is already affecting the behaviour, migration and emergence times of the wildlife I love. It is becoming harder to tell when summer ends and autumn starts, and knowing if we really will get a “proper” winter. I miss snow at Christmas, but I’ll miss the seasons more.
What will you show the love for this Valentine’s Day?