A cuckoo was calling from the heath today at the Lodge. I didn't hear it as I was in a meeting - new job, new meetings. But I did hear one on Bank Holiday Monday at the Anglo-Saxon burial ground of Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge in Suffolk. It was my first of spring. It should signal the hope and optimism that comes after a long hard winter. But recent declines mean that it can now be a wake up call to the shadow of a future without cuckoos. Maybe the Anglo-Saxons were on to something in the poem 'The Seafarer':
"Swylce geac monað geomran reorde; singeð sumeres weard, sorge beodeð bitter in breosthord."
(which, for those of you whose Anglo-Saxon is a bit rusty, translates along the lines of... So the cuckoo warns with a sad voice; the guardian of summer sings, bodes a sorrow grevious in the soul.)
But what really struck me on Monday, and on the drive over to the Lodge with a colleague this morning, was the red hue of the meadows. Sorrel has taken over as the grass has struggled in the heat and dryness of April.
And today we learnt that the dry spell and fires that have broken out across many parts of the UK may be having extremely serious consequences on the population of an already rare bird - the twite. Up to 40 per cent of its English population may be affected by fires in the north of England. This could be devastating. The species is confined to the Peak District and has been reduced to just 100 pairs which nest in small colonies. The bird used to occur much more widely in England, but for a variety of reasons has declined.
The current crisis facing the twite population shows how vulnerable some species can be to 'natural' disasters. The tragedy is that the current situation might undermine some fantastic partnership work that the RSPB has been doing with farmers to look after the haymeadows which provide the habitat for this bird.
The result of the AV vote can seem a little inconsequential when the natural world is under such pressure.
But politics does matter, which is why I'll return to the results of the elections across the UK later...
Thank you Martin,I think the RSPB does a great job but the problem is that what works at Hope Farm is almost completely irrelevant on all grassland including all livestock farms and we need to find things that will improve matters for farmland and small birds which I believe are small areas of wild bird mixture and in my opinion having looked at leaving hedges uncut for 2 years,not cleaning ditches out for 5 years and field borders left they have such a small improvement for me to say if the same effort and money put into small areas of wild bird seed mixtures we would get ten times better results but I have to convince someone like yourself to promote it.There is bound to be a problem getting farmers to respond but the evidence of it working is overwhelming.Really hope you will tell me your thoughts on it after you have seen reports of Arne and some in Scotland but I suspect you have already studied them.The biggest surprise for me was that when at Arne in late February there were still hundreds of birds on their patch of wild bird mixture so it obviously lasts all winter and I would add they were all small birds.
Sooty - you are right. This is the right challenge for all of us - to have a countryside rich in wildlife alongside a sustainable farming industry. The RSPB has, to be fair, been exploring this for some time - most specifically at Hope Farm where we have been trying to run an arable farm in Carmbridge, in step with others, and turn around the fortunes of farmland birds. We have had some succes and have been deligthed to demonstrate that we have been able to maintain profits while doubling the number of farmland birds. But, the challenge you pose is the right one and it's worthy of much further exploration.
Well it is commendable of RSPB to talk to farmers about hay meadows but they are almost exclusively yesteryear farming as everything now more or less revolves around silage which is 1)more productive (2)more feed value as the grass is younger (3)much easier (4)quicker as there is less risk of rain spoiling it.We need to find ways to integrate modern farming and wildlife as farmers are no more likely to go back a hundred years than the general public going back hundred years to pony and trap.
This almost seems the hardest thing for conservationists to understand so I have spelt it out in detail so that hopefully understanding means we move forward and things improve,not being provocative but pointless me sitting here knowing farmers thoughts and all general public+lots of conservationists not knowing the reality of the situation.