Outdoors Les Davies MBE

West Countryman’s diary

ATlast, the month we have all been waiting for . . . April! I hope you didn’t forget to turn the clocks forward at the end of March. I know there are some who question a need to change the clocks, an activity that began in WWI to give more daylight hours to farmers and industry. It even went into double summer time during WW2. My feeling is it’s an important part of the year when we cast off winter and move into spring with a promise of better days ahead.

We certainly need that hope in the current Ukrainian crisis and Covid-affected world. Where is this new Age of Aquarius that some have talked of, a time of peace and contentment? Perhaps we need to break some eggs to make the omelette, but it’s still an unnerving time.

I hope we can look back with relief and thanks for those who are defending their rights of democracy and sovereignty. However, I doubt things will ever be the same again.

Hibernation will now be over and those who have slept through the winter will be looking for something to eat. I’m bad enough after a night’s sleep, a cup of tea and my toasted bagel are the first things I need in the morning.

The adders will be waking up in search of their first meal in a long while. Their other need is warm sunshine and so they lie in the sun to raise the body temperature. It’s at this stage they are the most vulnerable and possibly the most dangerous to us and our dogs.

Unable to move quickly, they become easy prey to certain raptors, who with eyesight better than a superhero, can circle well above and pick them out. Sunbathing on top of a drystone wall is not a good idea!

The answer therefore is to get under cover, lie still and if danger threatens do one of two things: hope it goes away or strike and bite with a venom that’s extra strong after a winter’s sleep. So extra caution is needed by us and for the dog also – look before you sit down or put your hand on the wall and don’t let the dog go exploring the undergrowth.

Our countryside now moves up a gear to take on its own challenges. My blackbirds are well ensconced in the hedgerow, soon to produce their first clutch of eggs. Nest boxes in Foxwood will, I hope, have residents this year and the bluebells are showing green in the grassland.

Primroses are as ever well ahead of the game and competing for recognition with the golden celandine in the hedge bottom. That scourge of the manicured lawn, the dandelion, will give some of its first pollen to insects whose job it is to make sure our food crops are successful.

As is so often the case, what we consider a pest or weed fills a very important part of our wildlife jig-saw puzzle. Gosh it’s a busy place.

I recently went to see a rewilding project in North Somerset. Belmont Estates own the land adjacent to the Natural Trust property of Tyntesfield. In fact much of it was part of the original estate that I remember when the Gibbs family were still in residence.

I used to look down from the Flax Bourton to Wraxall road at Watercress Farm and think how wonderful it would be to live in that old farmhouse. The invitation to finally go and take a look came from the estate’s manager and owner.

Rewilding is a term that has entered our vocabulary of late with others such as Brexit. It is, I suppose, why the English language is used internationally, it’s constantly evolving and expanding. In basic terms, rewilding is a process of allowing the land to return to a natural balance that existed before the advent of the plough and the age of humans.

The initial impact of the “hunter-gatherer” had a minimal impact on the land. Not until the second half of the 20th century in WW2 did the pendulum begin to swing a little more violently and what could be termed marginal land came into production. At first this was during the war years to feed an island nation in desperate need of food.

Post-war the need for food still remained

With LES DAVIES MBE

and agricultural intensification began. I was part of the post-war push for greater productivity in the 1960s and 70s. As such the farmer DNA that is still within me is somewhat cautious about anything that will alter the balance of an agriculturally productive yet diverse countryside.

This said I am now changing my view after my initial visit to Belmont Estates. They are taking marginal land out of production: land that is hard to work, wet, heavy and in the past reliant on agrichemicals to boost production.

Good land will always be kept in production and with modern plant breeding I am pleased to hear this country is still at the cutting edge in many areas. New varieties of cereal are capable of greater production than their forebears. Now perhaps we can redress the balance for wildlife.

Tamworth pigs are going about the business that pigs are very good at, earth moving and in doing so they move the dormant seed bank below the surface. Dartmoor ponies are grazing and trampling as are the ubiquitous Red Devon cattle so well known on Black Down.

If you are interested in finding out a little more about the concept of rewilding, have a look at a book written by a lady with the appropriate name of Isabella Tree. It’s called Wilding and tells the story of how Isabella and her husband Charlie Burrell took a leap of faith and turned their farm at Knepp in West Sussex into a shining example of wildlife conservation that challenged our thinking on landscape evolution.

Finally this month’s photos, not one but two, are taken 66 years apart. The first with me aged four holding Flower the last working horse on Hales Farm. The second is me coming up to my 70th birthday with “Punch” the symbolic working horse made from redundant tools and metal work at the Somerset Rural Life Museum at Glastonbury.

Happy days!

Me and Punch