May in The Saints

May truly is a wonderful month for wildlife. Since my last email I've had a great response, with a number of you having sent in comments about wildlife seen in the area, including a great video of red deer in a field of wheat - complete with a beautiful skylark soundtrack. Others have commented on the increase in wildlife they've seen since the lock down. This is something we've all come across over the last few weeks although some have warned that it's not all good news https://bit.ly/2WqEgR2

Swallows, screaming swifts & house martins, ducklings, muntjac, moorhens are all frequent sights around here (especially in St James which seems to have an unusually high concentration of ponds - is the same in surrounding villages?). And I've been thrilled to hear over the past week or so the purr of a turtle dove (or hopefully more than one as I heard them in 3 separate locations in St James). I've become a little obsessed with these birds since I first encountered them in Menorca in 2016, and now I listen impatiently during the spring to hear them. They're fond of scrub and rougher, overgrown hedges and I do hope that they continue to return here - they need all the support they can get as numbers have plummeted by 94% in recent years www.operationturtledoveorg

After my earlier email I received a comment on the value of roadside verges for wildlife, especially when left uncut. The charity PlantLife has run a campaign over a encouraging councils and other landowners to reduce verge cutting to benefit wildlife for this reason https://bit.ly/35CUzPb and it's easy to see why uncut verges, especially when full of flowering colour and a mix of vegetation, can be so beneficial for invertebrates & other wildlife.

You may have seen reports recently of beavers being released on the Norfolk Kan Hill estate https://bit.ly/2Wh71AR. This is an important project for a number of reasons: increasingly, beavers activities as 'landscape engineers' are seen as providing part of the solution to localised flooding and drought problems which climate change brings. Furthermore, as 'keystone species' https://bit.ly/2WH4C1n beavers' presence can create substantial ecological and biodiversity benefits for a myriad of species.