Dale A Wilding Year

Bringing life back to the land
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83733-033-1
Verlag: Batsford
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

Follow Hannah Dale's deeply personal journey as she returns her Lincolnshire farm to nature, celebrating the return of an astonishing variety of wildlife. Hannah Dale, the artist and founder of the award-winning nature-centric gift company Wrendale Designs, takes you through a year on her farm in rural Lincolnshire where, alongside her husband, she has undertaken an ambitious rewilding project. Together, they are attempting to return the land to nature and increase the number of species their land is able to support. A Wilding Year explores how one family have been able to embrace the beauty to be found in untidy landscapes, heralding the return of skylarks, meadow pipits, hobbies, polecats and many more species to their farm. The land was originally claimed from marshy wetlands, and leaning into the land's natural inclination to be wet has also yielded amazing ponds and pond life. This rewilding journey has also provided Hannah with new sources of inspiration for her paintings. A Wilding Year is both a journal and a sketchbook, in which Hannah keeps a visual record of the incredible variety of species she finds on the farm. This fascinating account of a year spent in nature brings to life the beauty and power of wildlife in every season.

Hannah Dale runs Wrendale Designs, a stationery and gift design company which specialises in endearing illustrations depicting British wildlife. Her other Batsford titles include: A Dog's Life, The Farmyard Set The Young Ones, The Country Set, Born to be Wild and Flying The Nest. Hannah lives in rural Lincolnshire and her work is inspired by the beautiful surrounding countryside. She can be found on social media @wrendaledesigns and is also a trained zoologist.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dale, Hannah

Leseproben

March

It’s chilly and damp but there are signs everywhere that spring is jostling to take over from winter. Swollen leaf buds adorn bare branches, full of the promise of verdancy just around the corner. Snowdrops are tired and withered after their early exertions while delicate crocuses are enjoying their time in the sun and fresh shoots, bold with the confidence of youth, are emerging everywhere. The hedgerows are already full of birdsong, the melancholy fluting of song thrushes providing a backdrop for the robin’s soprano, while a wren loudly demands to be heard.

Over at the sett, the badgers have been indulging in some spring cleaning. Bundles of discarded bedding have been dragged out and abandoned in jumbled piles. It’s likely that somewhere underneath my feet the sows are tenderly nursing their newly born cubs who will stay safely tucked away in their subterranean cocoon until April.

Kestrels, defying gravity above the farm, are a common sight. When vole numbers are abundant, a kestrel’s territory is relatively small, so it’s a promising sign that the farm is able to support several pairs. Apparently untroubled by our presence, a young male kestrel has settled around the house and roosts on a convenient waste pipe that runs above our sitting room window. The result is an impressive, chalky white abstract masterpiece on the window below and a collection of small furry pellets studded with tiny bones. During the day, his favourite perch is at the top of a high wall that marks the boundary between the garden and The Park, an old established grassland. Years of enrichment had resulted in lush grass that could support higher numbers of beef cattle but the loss of a myriad of delicate and diverse meadow flowers that were unable to compete with the vigorous grass or excessive grazing. Over the last few years, we have taken the cattle off the land and harvested a cut of hay late each summer to help remove some fertility from the soil. It is clear that the land still holds the memories of its past life, and in the first spring that the grazing pressures were lifted we were rewarded with an explosion of pignut flowers covering the entire field, lacy little umbellifers that had been waiting patiently for a chance to bloom. Each year, increasing numbers of flowers are tentatively emerging, and we are seeing the return of cowslips, great burnet, ragged robin, viper’s bugloss, buttercups and even the occasional orchid. The area is still dominated by grass and there is a long way to go but we’re slowly coaxing the old meadow to reawaken. It is the kestrel’s preferred hunting ground and this is where he likes to sit and survey his kingdom. Today, it appears that something unusual has caught his eye.

Before I see them, I hear the starlings. Hundreds of individual voices chattering away create a monotone clamour quite unlike any other sound on the farm. Like some kind of biblical swarm, the air is suddenly filled with little torpedos that land with a swift motion on the grass, and the entire garden is eclipsed by the noisy mob. With frenzied haste, the starlings furiously raid the lawn for any unsuspecting grubs, all the while maintaining their chaotic conversations. Iridescent hues shimmer on the ground – purples, blues, greens and blacks glinting and glimmering in the sunlight. An unexpected movement by the kestrel on the wall sets into motion a perfectly coordinated chain reaction, accompanied by a whooshing sound like a wave breaking on the shore, as hundreds of wings beat the air in unison. The cloud of birds lifts, waxing and waning like a shimmering shoal of fish, moving to the rhythm of an unseen conductor. I hold my breath as I watch the swirling, swooping shape.

As quickly as they arrived, the starlings have departed. The flock envelops the branches of an oak tree and nearby telegraph wires, where they sit like musical notes on an orchestral score. Starlings are remarkable birds. Famous for their mesmerizing murmurations, which can consist of thousands of individuals, they are incredibly social and are amazing mimics. They can make a huge variety of sounds and captive birds have even learned to imitate human voices. Population declines have meant that starlings are now considered a Red List Threatened Species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Stretching his wings, the kestrel settles back into his vigilant watch over The Park, perhaps relieved that the temporary madness has passed.

* * * * *

This week, a neighbouring farmer invited us to attend the parish council meeting held in the local church. This farmer, well into his eighties, had introduced himself when we moved to the village as ‘the self-appointed ragwort police’, so we had a fair idea what might be coming.

Before we took our land out of arable production, we gave a great deal of thought to what was the ‘right’ thing to do with it. Jack’s family had farmed in Lincolnshire for generations and we have deep connections with the farming community in our area. The vast majority of the farmers we know care about the countryside and take their responsibilities as stewards of the land seriously. They balance this with the challenges of running an incredibly stressful business and grappling with government directives and incentives as best they can. However, this hasn’t stopped biodiversity from collapsing around us as farming techniques have intensified, and it’s clear that there needs to be a step change in the way the countryside is managed. Conventional farming can become more nature friendly, and it can continue to exist alongside regimes that support and restore nature and natural processes – the two systems can, and should, operate hand in hand, supporting and benefiting one another. Prime and productive arable farmland is best used to grow food that can be eaten by humans, but where the land is poor and unyielding it can offer far more value to wildlife than to food production. According to DEFRA, 42 per cent of England’s farms produce a meagre 2 per cent of the total agricultural output. Our marginal land falls into this category and this underpinned our decision to take it out of cultivation and instead dedicate it to our impoverished wildlife.

However, even if we can agree that the decision to devote our farm to nature is morally and practically sound, the reality of the changing landscape is another hurdle to reconcile. We’ve tried our best to engage our neighbours with what we are doing on the farm, and almost without exception we have been met with excitement and interest. Many have commented on how much more wildlife they are experiencing in their gardens and how much the volume of birdsong in the hedgerows that border the farm has increased. However, we did know that one or two were not very happy about the changing character of our land as it morphed overnight from hosting golden swathes of uniform crops to taking charge of its own destiny, replete with all the weedy, scrubby messiness that this entails.

In addition to the farmer already mentioned, a gentleman with a garden close to our fields was particularly unhappy. His preference is to keep his large expanse of garden as pristine and immaculate as a bowling green. Not a flower or weed in sight, just a perfect, uniform sea of grass, each blade clipped neatly to a required length, so it’s perhaps understandable that he wasn’t thrilled about looking out over a wild and messy landscape rather than a tidy monoculture of wheat.

After just a few short years, we recorded 23 different butterfly species on the farm last summer.

Despite this, I wasn’t fazed by the prospect of the meeting. I knew that most of the residents of the village were supportive. Galvanized by the results we were already seeing in terms of diversity and abundance of wildlife on the farm, I also went into the meeting with a deep sense that what we were doing was right. I decided to try and weigh the odds in my favour by pitching the meeting as an update to the village on our work at the farm and the results we were already seeing. I talked about the dire state of wildlife in our country. The UK ranks among the most nature-depleted nations globally, falling within the bottom 10 per cent for biodiversity*: 38 million birds have disappeared from our shores in the past 50 years, and we have lost 60 per cent of all insects in the last 20**. Even on our own doorsteps, one of our neighbours is an amateur lepidopterist, and had mentioned to me that when he started recording species in the local area 28 years ago, he would regularly note 21 species of butterfly in a year. This has fallen dramatically and now a normal annual count would amount to only 13 different species. After just a few short years, we recorded 23 different butterfly species on the farm last summer. Our surveyor remarked that it is now likely to be one of the best sites in the county for grassland butterflies. I also talked about the 83 different bird species we have recorded, including 17 IUCN Red List species, and the overall increase in abundance we are seeing as habitats regenerate and the land is given a chance to breathe. I felt that I had done a good job in justifying what we were trying to achieve and talked a little about how I hoped that it would ultimately benefit future generations in the local community.

The words were barely out of my mouth when our garden-proud neighbour spat out his disgust that he was now having to spray pesticides on his lawn four times a year compared with twice a year before we stopped spraying our own land. Then the aforementioned farmer chimed in with his opinions on the...