Back when I was doing my Zoology degree in the 1960s I was reading books like Rachel Carson – Silent Spring and Gordon Rattray Taylor – The Biological Timebomb and the Doomsday Book. Population, Pollution and ecological catastrophe were big themes to grapple with.
I had grown up with nature, romped in fields full of buzz, stridulation, colour and life. I caught lizards, newts, frogs, toads and snakes. The ditches were alive with living creatures. The air was full of wings, feathered and chitinous and my ears were full of birdsong and chirping, buzzing melody. My eyes took the colours for granted.
I suppose I thought it would always be like that. That Rachel and Gordon’s warnings would be heeded.
My fear was that the overnight destruction of the richness of nature would shock people into action.
But it isn’t like that.
As the population has increased it has steadily encroached. The ditches were culvetted, the hedgerows scratted up. The monocultures were sprayed with herbicide and the flowers withered. The fields were sprayed with pesticide and the insects declined. The creatures that fed on insects starved or were poisoned.
Gradually, foot by foot, nature was reduced, increment by increment. No more shrews or voles, no visiting hedgehogs, no swifts shrieking in delight as they screamed through the air feeding on the flying insects. No house-martins and swifts to skim across the fields and streams.
Little by little it is being eaten away – slowly – so that nobody even notices.
There were two swifts this afternoon where there would have been fifty. No swallows where there were a dozen. No house-martins nesting in the eaves.
There are no splodges on my windscreen. No need to clean the headlights.
No colour in the meadow. No buzz in the ear.
It makes me want to cry.
No lightening bugs of my youth 😔
It’s only every now and then you pause and notice what has gone. Our buddleias used to be tumbling with butterflies. Now the bees have gone. The fields are green with no flowers, there are no insects. It’s very sad.
Those lightning bugs were important.
Your so right Opher……😔😔
We’ve got to do something about it Linda!
Oh Opher… That one got to me. I have to read it to Drollery…
The poor, long-suffering man. You shouldn’t torture him like that. They are offering criminals shortened sentences if they agree to suffer twenty minutes a day having my words read to them!
And I never realised I was doing penance!
Perhaps we all are Safar? I hope the pain is not too unbearable.
I do just openly cry when I get thinking about it too much, I remember a childhood of making up fairy stories in an overgrown meadow, collecting wild strawberries, sucking nectar from gorse flowers (and getting stung), looking for slow worms under boulders and wonder at how quickly it all disappeared. But I now at what is a very neglected arboretum of a garden and celebrate nature’s return. I know now I can make a difference. So a life in teaching exchanged for a life of planting trees is what it’s got to be.
Smiled when I saw the title of the post. Of course – HAD to read it!! Have you read any Daniel Quinn? (Not biology books – but a good commentary on the state we’re in). Or seen Farm for the Future?
There is a huge grass roots movement though to turn things around. I never realised how large until I started making a change myself. It could reach that critical mass – I do live in hope.
But I now look* at what…..
We look to some intelligence being applied and the greed being curtailed – a new awakening!
We have to live in hope. What else is there? We have to do our best even if it proves to be nothing but a gesture. A gesture is better than nothing. To know that you live life in honesty, with positivity and leave having done some good is maybe sufficient. It is better than giving in.
I haven’t read Daniel Quinn but have read farm for the future.
I put my faith in the zeitgeist and that grass-root movement. If we fail it won’t be for the want of trying. You might ‘like’ my Anthropocene Apocalypse’.
Live in hope. Build a better future. That’s what we teachers spent our lives doing.
I’ll take a look!
That is why Opher I feed the Birds in my Garden and the Squirrels and now Bambi as well she is still around. My garden is bliss when I hear all the Birds singing, as they are doing right now. I have two Large Crows don’t care for what they do but they are handsome Birds. I have Henry the Dove, so many greedy Pigeons, frogs and Bertie Hedgehog. So many squirrels running around, having fun making me laugh. I may annoy the neighbours with all my Trees and Shrubs but I don’t care, the Bees buzz, the Butterflies are due, we don’t feed all this wonderful creatures they will disappear. I could imagine not hearing the Birds singing all day in my Garden.
It sounds like a veritable oasis. I feed the birds here and have lots of nest boxes up but the decline is noticeable – particularly in the swifts and swallows. We don’t get hedgehogs poking around like we used too either. A slow sad decline. Keep up the good work.
Sadly the figures are down but you have to keep feeding. Here you won’t see Squirrels who are as fat as the ones that come to feed. Had two babies this morning running along the top of the fence, they are so cute.
Yes you are right – keep feeding – keep the trees and hedges – leave wild patches – grow the right flowers – put in a pond. It all helps.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
It’s all coming true.
Me too, who cares so few people these days, its all concrete gardens where I am. I think people around me regard these gardens as a mess. But, I grow plants and Trees for the Birds and Squirrels, hedgehogs, frogs and all the other little creatures. Nothing more brings joy to me than to hear the Birds all singing, flyin down for their food, their seed their nuts, Squirrels playing. To hell with what others think the gardens belong to nature. Have you seen that Elephant hunt/slaughter advert on tv, I saw the first few moments, tears in the Elephant’s eyes as it stopped running waiting to be slaughtered. I had to turn away, I won’t look. What do some say, Animals do not feel pain, or cry – I have one word for them, Bastards. My own MP here voted for that bill, I am preparing my answer for him!! Keep informing us Opher, we need to enlighten the ignorant of the damage they do to this World of ours.
If you don’t mind I will Reblog.
The environment and animals are my passion Anna. I am sickened by what is going on around the world. So many people are cruel, mindless individuals who do not care a cuss about their suffering.
Reblogged this on Anna Cottage and commented:
Excellent blog, we all need to realize the damage being done.
Thanks for the reblog Anna.