TALES FROM THE HILLS

(Ashmansworth and Crux Easton)

Up here in open country, it seems churlish to turn away wildlife when it comes to your door; after all, we are bulldozing their nests to build our own. So, when swallows built a nest in one person’s garage, the door stayed open for weeks until the young birds had flown.

Dormice, being rare, also take priority over our personal preferences: when a dead one was found, and its presence at the site was confirmed by an expert, it turned out they prefer their hedges to be left overgrown.

That’s typical of most wildlife: always preferring overgrown gardens; but they’re not always unwelcome.

Ivy and clematis, planted deliberately to conceal the walls of one dull building, now accommodate the nests of wrens and blackbirds – and the song of birds is a lot more cheering than some gloomy ‘Banksy’ covering the wall.

In Toad of Toad Hall, stoats and weasels are the villains. Gamekeepers certainly don’t like them. Even W H Hudson, the naturalist, said he would ride his bike over a stoat if he saw one crossing the road. Yet it’s reported that even stoats can be an asset round the house. An attic in Ashmansworth, once full of mice, was suddenly full of stoats, with bright eyes and clean white teeth. They’d eaten all the mice, which had been nibbling everything including the electrics and old family papers.

Weasels can be an asset too: a weasel killed a rat on the lawn, at least five times its own size. The fight looked as lively as any gladiators in ancient Rome.

The pygmy shrews prefer the living room and kitchen. They are said to eat nothing but insects so they, too, might have been an asset. But some human guests, seeing them scurry along the skirting, became nervous and they had to be shown the door. The shrews, I mean.

Hornets colonised a nest box and built a huge nest round it. Family and friends, partying in the garden below, didn’t notice them, thank goodness! The hornets naturally behaved themselves. Despite appearances, they are easy-going creatures. The hornets, I mean.

A true ‘eco-house’ should not erase the local ecosystem but accommodate it, or we’ll lose the lot. Is this a tale, or too much like a sermon for the feast of St Francis?

Agricola, March 2024