Within living memory

[bigdave60dog]

Originally Posted by jpscloud

Those are great memories Dave - I was lucky enough to see just the tail end of all that diversity in the late 60's I think.

On a sadder note one of the great disasters of the time was the death of the elms - I remember their huge dead skeletons being cut down around our small field, and the very distintive patterns under the bark.

The field across from our house (belonging to a local farmer) had two large "pits" in - natural ponds surrounded by a good bit of marshy margin. I would give anything for one of those on my doorstep now. They were drained and filled in surprisingly late, in the 80s I think.

Yeah the loss of Elms was major catastrophe. Made worse by the fact that it precipitated a fashion for the removal of hedges. Many South Warwickshire hedges were full of elms. Once the hedge had died it was easy to grub it out along with the dead trees.
It was bonanzer for my family. We had 4 children and lived in huge Farmhouse with only open fires for heating. In the cold winters we could burn a ton of wood in day. The dead elm trees was like Manna from Heaven for us at the time.
I was very aware of the sadness of the loss but at the same time it was one less worry as farm incomes began to decline.
Dave

[jpscloud]

Yes... we were also relatively poor and dead elms provided us with heating too, actually for years. No such thing as central heating for us then!

[jpscloud]

... and one more observation... I'm not sure if it's just that it's early in the year or what, but the swifts that fly above my garden now number only three that I can see regularly. 12 years ago there were dozens, barnstorming my garden and screaming - I didn't really notice the decline until last year.

[nightshade]

I remember Sandmartins, Kingfishers and Dippers in the stream along the back of the local football pitch. Local ponds brimming with every type of newt (GCN were common) Grass snakes and Adders were a common "hazard" to a days playing. Swifts and Swallows, Martins and Bats filled the blue sky of never ending summer. Oh and the two regular Cuckoos in the Oak grove.
Then they started building estates of houses, they filled the ponds (one that was spring-fed later washed out the foundations of the house built on it) they dynamited the stumps of old Oaks they widened roads and the Martins sandbank went, they laid in more drainage and the stream levels dropped.
Developers bought up land and built ugly boxes on them and between existing houses, farmland was snapped up and the village became a town.
The Cuckoos now have a powered hang-glider for company!

[bigdave60dog]

I remember blasting out tree stumps. -it was actually gelignite that was used (more stable).
This si turning out to be really good thread.
Dave

[nightshade]

The real change started when they sold the farmers market. Until then you could be assured of seeing farmers with their polished leather gaiters and horses pulling traps or other two wheeled carts with a netted pig or lamb at
their feet. These small farmers gave up or sold up and the farms grew in size.
Permission to shoot over these farms disappeared, this was a time when chicken only appeared on the table at Christmas, so we lost the rabbits for the table. A bicycle and a catapult put us in a position to take pheasant that roosted over the Hunstrete lakes or later in the year ate blackberries in the lanes (it was nothing to meet a darting procession of Partridge and young along these lanes)
Then the numbers of rabbits increased to plague proportions and a disease was imported, carried by fleas, it killed the rabbits above ground and underground. Their eyes became volcanoes of scabs and they could frequently be found crouched shivering (we used to kill and burn the bodies
as many as twenty a day) Myxomatosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This was pre-"beware of the stranger" days and I virtually lived in the local fields and lanes, I still come across photos of birds and animals and tell people that they used to live in such and such an area locally. They just cannot believe that huge flocks of peewits and pigeon used to be regular sights on the marshy bottom fields and some corners were thick with butterflies. What a loss.

[Nutty]

Now through continued use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, planting crops earlier than ever and outside traditional planting times, little in the way of winter stubble, removal of hedgerows, water abstraction and tidying up every bit of scrub and 'marginal' land and trying to bring it into production etc,etc,etc...the area is now virtually barren.

Speaking as a farmer I do get upset at the generalisation that we are all ripping up hedges etc. I get cross when I read that the demise of wildlife is due to 'instensive farming' whereas the success stories are attributed to the various wildlife groups. We run a commercial arable farm but we farm sensitively and have various seed, pollen and nectar margins around fields and also areas of managed scrub. In an earlier thread, I posted about a recent farm bird count by the RSPB and I would add that they were impressed by the numbers and species of birds they saw in the short time they were here. I think I am now seeing more birds, bees and butterflies here than ever before and I have lived here for forty years.

[bigdave60dog]

Originally Posted by Nutty

Speaking as a farmer I do get upset at the generalisation that we are all ripping up hedges etc. I get cross when I read that the demise of wildlife is due to 'instensive farming' whereas the success stories are attributed to the various wildlife groups. We run a commercial arable farm but we farm sensitively and have various seed, pollen and nectar margins around fields and also areas of managed scrub. In an earlier thread, I posted about a recent farm bird count by the RSPB and I would add that they were impressed by the numbers and species of birds they saw in the short time they were here. I think I am now seeing more birds, bees and butterflies here than ever before and I have lived here for forty years.

I don`t think that anyone is suggesting that it is your fault. there is no need to get upset or to take it personally.
A good bird count is not always down to the farmer. I surveyed a farm with an amazing amount of woodland birds because the farm had dirty great wood in the middle of it. Not belonging to the farm but all of the birds crossed my survey area in order to go the river to drink. I am NOT suggesting that this is your case.
It is the general trend of society not just farming but gardeners, Town and County Councils, ordinary householders etc. that do not accept that as race we have the power of life or death over most of the other inhabitants of this planet and so a responsibility to use that power respectfully. Farms are just a piece in a pattern of which we are all part.
My friend lost his dog through it drinking water on a footpath where the farmer had cleaned his stubble with paraquat prior to cultivation. Are there any figures for how often this happens and do birds do the same? How many song thrushes die through eating molluscs contaminated with slug pellets in gardens?
Dave
Dave