Sooner than expected......

It's autumn, the days are shortening, the nights are lengthening, it's getting wetter and colder, the wildlife and the forager are gazing fondly at the bumper harvest of wild fruit, from blackberries and wild plums, to sloes and hips and haws. And then along comes the farmer with his tractor-mounted flail and trims the bloody hedges!!

No wonder the wildlife around here is so drastically depleted from what it was, when farmers are so ignorant of the effect of their actions, that they don't spare a thought for the wildlife, or indeed Mrs Jones and the kids who want to collect blackberries.

Why, oh why don't they wait until late winter, when the berries have all been eaten, and before the hedgerows wake up and start producing their flowers? Is it just that they'll be busy with the lambs then and would rather get it done now while the ground is (relatively) dry? Probably.

There should be a directive telling all farmers that hedges are to be cut in January or thereabouts, and then maybe we'd have some wildlife in our beleagured countryside. Forget predation by magpies, if there's no food, there'll be no wildlife!! Oh well, who needs small birds anyway??

Martin.