#325: No hedges, no hogs...

This Cambridge News piece reminds us that if there are no hedges, there will be no hedgehogs... and hedges are being lost from farms, despite attempts to restore them now, with new targets for planting new hedges. 

Some are being planted in the fields around the village where I live in Norfolk. We need more hedges for sure.

#322: Where the wild things are...

An excellent piece in today's Guardian explores the importance of gardens and parks to Britain's wildlife.

The piece explores the "shifting baseline" and the quiet disappearance of animals we used to take for granted, such as hedgehogs. I also remember a fox family that used to live in the grounds of the derelict church opposite the GA headquarters in Solly Street, Sheffield. They are now a huge block of student accommodation, and the foxes are nowhere to be seen.

We cry habitat loss, but it’s theft, really – no one is so careless as to lose their home. We call it progress, but how dare we? How many people, throughout the planning process, will have thought of or cared about hedgehogs? Or considered any of the other residents, both human and wild? The management company would have conducted an ecology survey, no doubt. But, as is often the case, it was probably done in winter, when the hedgehogs were hibernating. Did any residents other than Choel and me know there were hedgehogs on that estate? Did anyone care? The council paved over the gardens to save money on maintenance. The trees and park were lost because the car parks that replaced them can be a source of income. The residents placed there by the council would not necessarily have known or thought about those habitats, making them so much easier to destroy.

#303: National Hedgerow Week 2024

I'm looking forward to reading the new book: 'Hedgelands'.

We are now in National Hedgerow Week as it stands.

Great to see an article on why hedgerows are important in the Big Issue! Don't forget National Hedgerow Week starts next week, get ready! #NHW #NationalHedgerowWeek24 🌳 💚 pic.twitter.com/MCleiuQWY4

— The Tree Council (@TheTreeCouncil) April 29, 2024

The article in The Big Issue is important to catch up with. Why not buy your own copy of the latest issue. 

I try to pick one up from vendors in Ely or Norwich.

There's a great opening to that piece which sums up why hedgerows are important.

The traditional British hedge is the greatest edge habitat on earth. It is a green food bank, a windbreak, a stock fence, a flood defence system, an immense storage unit for excess carbon dioxide and an incomparable haven for wildlife. According to the RSPB, “hedges may support up to 80% of our woodland birds, 50% of our mammals and 30% of our butterflies”.

A hedge provides singing posts for birds, a crucial navigational aid for bats, and a cross-country route for any number of small mammals, safely hidden from predators. Hedgerow shrubs and trees, bathed in sunshine, will also produce far more fruit that in a woodland. You won’t find many juicy blackberries in the heart of a dark oak forest, no matter how many brambles might be trying to grow there. The most generous kind of hedge should include shrubs, trees and bushes, coppiced and/or cut and laid, forming a row.

It's #NationalHedgerowWeek!
Tell us @Hedgelink_UK how you'll be celebrating hedgerows this week! Share your favourite hedge photos with #myfavehedge and spread the word just how great hedges are! pic.twitter.com/m9IwZ1dxPk

— Hedgelink (@Hedgelink_UK) May 6, 2024

I feel very lucky to have access to fields and hedgerows within two minutes walk of my home. They are full of bird life and plants