Four of us got back from Lesvos yesterday to a bright but cold Manchester. I always find it massively depressing when I come back from such places, rich in wild flowers, dense hedgrows and scrub, butterflies and other insects, bird-life to die for and continuous and varied birdsong, especially from larks and buntings; and decent weather.
I find myself back in a country with too many barren and trashed rural landscapes. Up here at Trisant tree removal to facilitate double-fencing recently accelerated to a remarkable extent and while I was away a strand of trees opposite my gateway was largely removed and the remaining ones had all their lower branches sawn away. Earlier a lovely hill-slope of gorse was torched, just where a pair of Yellowhammers were clinging on. I despair. I am of an age when in my lifetime there was a far greater richness and diversity of wildlife in the general countryside and much had already been lost before then. Read 'Goodby To The Cuckoo' by Michael McCarthy to be really depressed. The statistics on bird losses in just a few recent decades is staggering. It makes you realise the value of the work of the County Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, WWT and so on, but their land-holdings are often like rich, isolated oases.
I need cheering up, hopefully before putting on my water-proofs to meet my next holiday group!