Autumn berries and easy prey

This is one of my ‘start typing and see where I end up’ blogs. It ain’t pretty but it does the business.

I’ll start with one of those, ‘has anyone else thought of that’ moments. Hubby and I were walking round and about in the crisp autumnal air yesterday morning, most of the autumnal leaves having dropped to the ground, revealing loads-a autumnal red berries still clinging to the branches. The birds don’t need to be fed by us, I mused. Look at all these berries, literally ripe for their picking.

Hubby was pretty sure the birds would be following their instincts and only eat what was best for them. I disagreed. At this time of year, on a cold and frosty morning, Mother Nature intended them to gorge on vitamins. The nuts and seeds in our feeders were tastier, more filling, but full of protein, of which Mother Nature, in her wisdom, was depriving them. Therefore, by making protein available, we were messing with the birdies’ natural diets, most probably to their detriment somehow. You don’t go against Mother Nature and expect it not to end in tears.

Hubby had no answer to that. 

A little further on and we could hear and see a farmer with a chainsaw – a Hollywood combination if ever there was one – chopping up trees he’d felled recently. They were old and dangerous and diseased and poised to fall anyway so people of a Green persuasion can back off. Not far away was a Chinese Water Deer, feeding without a care in the world. We expressed surprise that the chainsaw wasn’t scaring him. (An arbitrary gender assignment if ever there was one but those of a woke persuasion can back off.) He probably doesn’t associate chainsaws with hunting, said Hubby. I wonder if he can tell the difference between a hunting rifle and a clay pigeon shotgun, I added.

Again, Hubby had no answer to that.

Two frequent visitors to our garden are a hare and a bunny. They live in perfect harmony (having taught the world to sing), scavenging side-by-side under the bird feeders. Does the rabbit know he’s not a hare? Does the hare know he’s not a rabbit? We’ll never know.

Thinking about our rabbit/hare predicament reminded me (in a roundabout kind of way) of our encounter with grizzly bears in Alaska. They lived in a National Park where hunting bears is prohibited. As a result, they had no idea that humans are a threat that are to be attacked and killed. They also had loads to eat in the form of salmon, which looked much tastier than us motley crew wrapped in duvet-coats and woolly hats, pointing clicky things (cameras) at them, so they didn’t have the urge to eat us. And that’s how the morning went. We sat there watching them, sometimes no further than six feet away, fishing, eating, playing, dozing, us resisting the urge to give them a hug. Talking of urges, after a couple of hours sitting in the cold, I thought a quick nip behind a tree was in order. Mother Nature is obviously a mind reader because, as soon as I’d spied a suitable tree, the biggest, meanest bear of the lot appeared from behind it and swaggered down to the river for his share of salmon. Just in case there were any more of them in the woods, I decided to forget I’d had two coffees that morning.

Apart from being that close to some of the most beautiful creatures on earth (don’t tell the hare, deer or George Clooney I said that), the experience was uneventful. Had one of the bears got antsy, then our guide would have fired a flare to a) scare off the bear (temporarily) and b) signal to the plane to come get us quick. That was the theory. Thank goodness we didn’t have to see if it worked in practice. Not that the tour company would have minded either way. They got us to sign a 16-page liability waiver before we set off. God Bless America.

Back to Buckinghamshire, and the chap who popped round yesterday afternoon to talk about digging us a natural pond. He seemed to think it would be straightforward, until we warned him that 1) it was possible that the utility supplies were somewhere under the land to be dug and 2) our green and pleasant paddock used to be a farmyard and, from previous experience, was more rubble, plastic, metal and don’t-ask than clay. If he’s got any sense, he’ll price himself out of the job.

I shall end this potpourri of nature soundbites with thoughts for a farmer who was jailed last year for dredging a river and chopping down trees to try and prevent homes being flooded. The Environment Agency and Natural England say he broke the law and killed a stretch of river that’ll take decades to right. He says he didn’t, the river is healthier than it was before he worked on it, and that he has the support of the local community that was being flooded. I’m not believing him or condoning what he did. There’s a global ecological catastrophe going on and we need to protect every inch of valuable green habitat and discourage its destruction. But this farmer, who ‘mistakenly’ prioritised human homes over those for bugs, was almost broken in jail, whereas wife-beaters, rapists, knife-wielding drug dealers, stalkers and sleeper-terrorists roam free with slapped wrists. 

By all means make him pay financially and in man-hours to rectify the damage, working with a local nature trust. By all means name and shame him. But prison? Still, if it means it distracts attention away from the Environment Agency failing to properly investigate crab deaths in the north east, and Natural England failings over Nutrient Neutrality, then job-done by the bullying Establishment over an easy prey.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why the likes of Farage, Meloni, Trump, Milei, Wilders and now McGregor attract popular support, because they portray themselves as anti-Establishment and pro-ordinary people, ready to re-prioritise society in favour of, well, their own societies. This will continue unless the Establishment and self-appointed moral high-grounders quit carping and start conversing – with their prey because, as can be seen, when the prey fights back, it ain’t pretty.