Hugh’s views: Saving nature
Cuckoo flowers on Amble’s industrial estate
“Did you know that a bird nearly landed on your head?’ A bit of an exaggeration as it turned out. A passing neighbour had spotted a kestrel hovering directly overhead while I worked on a vegetable patch in my allotment in early May. By the time I had connected with it, the kestrel had moved on to continue its search for prey. Perhaps this was the same bird I had previously spotted around the nearby industrial estate and have seen since hunting over other allotments.
In May a national newspaper the i issued a front-page warning about the loss of nature in the British Isles. The leaders of four major charities, the National Trust, the RSPB, the Woodland Trust and the Wildlife Trusts stated that wildlife in the UK is being failed by all of our major political parties. It suggested that politicians should be asked if they really care about nature.
The following day readers responded with letters sharing their concerns citing several examples of how nature seemed to be disappearing.
Around the same time two people were about to appear in a Newcastle court in connection with the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree. The outpouring of anger and grief at this act was widely interpreted as a demonstration of just how much the public cares about nature.
These occasional outbursts of concern for nature don’t seem to carry much weight with our politicians. Occasionally their awareness of nature results in gestures such as a No Mow May which saves some cash but is virtually useless in terms of saving nature.
Why obliterate thriving plant and invertebrate communities at the end of May before summer has even started? Where will the insects come from to feed the broods of swifts, house martins and swallows which depend on this food source to feed their young?
More and more natural areas are being treated in this way in Amble at the expense of wildlife and wildflowers.
This Spring I noticed four orange tip butterflies in Amble. I have discovered more cuckoo flowers, a food plant for orange tip larvae, some growing in unexpected places but all being pushed into the margins as plant communities continue to disappear preventing these and other species from completing their life cycles. There is still a natural community within Amble but one which is being severely fragmented and degraded with each passing year.
Hugh Tindall
