THE BIGGER PICTURE.

The weather over the last two days has been incredibly mild for this time of year, and those that had hoped to be skating on the flooded fen rivers have been dissapointed.

Here in the garden, daffodils are in bud under the apple trees in the small orchard. Only one of the trees produced any fruit last year and interestingly, it was a late cropping eating apple, the earlier ones had their blossoms knocked off by wind and rain at a time when the pollinating insects were also effected by the weather conditions. This time last year I was clearing up the remains of apples all over the grass and putting them on the compost heap in the vegetable garden. Those that were still good enough for hungry birds to peck at I left. This winter the birds really are heavily reliant on the many feeders hung on the trees. A great sight but ... I would rather they were able to forage naturally. On the apple trees themselves, normally decorated with quite a few winter surviving fruits ... just one, sad little wizened face remained.

The local weather forecast at the beginning of the year predicted a cold spell but at the moment the night temperatures are warmer than the day time ones would normally be this early in January and it is quite clear that the birds consider it mild enough to begin their courtship behaviour. There's a lot of bird flirty activity happening around here.

A man who is going to trim the huge Leylandii hedge tomorrow as well as pruning a few of the ornamental trees in the garden has said that last year hedges and trees grew at exceptional rates and he was trimming clients hedges more often than is usual.

Naturalists are forecasting a drastic reduction in large numbers of our native species, across the bird, insect and plant spectrum due to the second worst year of weather since records began, however I noticed in a newspaper recently, (in an article covering this very subject) a phrase referring to vulnerable species that " ... their populations could be permanently damaged.". Yes it is a possibility but not a probability and also there is the flip side of the coin that more recently declining species may indeed thrive and survive in ways that years ago were considered to be problematical. We cannot preserve this world in some aspic equlibrium. Nature will have her way and we as a species are actually a very  small part of a global diversity but ... humans, during a  relatively minute existence on this ancient planet have had a devastating effect. If anything has possibly permananently damaged our eco systems on this planet, it most certainly is not a year of unusual weather. Eco systems by their very nature, are constantly changing, they never can be kept in stasis. We are not trying to save the planet, but our own species as a priority. The planet will survive quite adequately without human kind damaging the surface of it. Let's face it, she did so for millions of years before we even existed. Someone once said that if the life of the world was condensed into a single hour, us humans have only existed during the last two seconds, two ticks of the clock!

Anyway, returning back to more recent close to the ground observations, just today walking between the still flooded fields in an area of the fens I noticed relatively large hoof prints in the muudy path between arable field and dyke, methinks a Roe deer stag ...

Now, compared to an English pound coin, that may seem rather small ... my dog made larger paw prints than this deep indentation in mud >>> 

He was nose to the ground, tracking the deer spoor when he got a shock from a bird he has never seen before. A beautiful cock pheasant rose out of the rushes, just a few feet ahead of us an climbed into the sky giving a loud alarm call and all around us, smaller birds responded to that alarm call. It was a noisy interlude into an otherwise quiet and for me ... reflective mood. I had been pondering about the state of the agriculture around me, the field to one side had been only half ploughed, it was obvious that the farmer had given up ploughing due to flooding and even after these last relatively dry days the pools of water were reflecting the dimming, late afternoon sky which was grey and seemed to promise rain (again) and yes, even as I write, late in the night, I can hear it splattering the window panes, outside it is so mild for a January night.  The one good thing about today was the vast reduction in exterior Christmas decorations, suddenly the village at night seems more naturally dark! 

   Here's to the year ahead ... time for bed ... to rest the weary head.