Long Live The Hedgerows
And long live red squirrels, conservation themed bookshops and #Litterheros too!
Hello there lovely person, I’m Vicky Wren and I run Wren and the Wild. Britain is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world so I use illustration, film, photos and words to enjoy, explore and encourage the protection and rewilding of our wonderful British Isles. Subscribe for free to enjoy monthly newsletters and in between posts from Edinburgh and the land and water beyond. You can also find me on YouTube, Instagram and my digital nature connection printables are over on Etsy.
Wild Wanderings
Three weekends ago, myself, Flo and a couple of friends went to explore the beautiful surroundings of the Falkland Estate and Falkland town, across the water in Fife. The town will be familiar to those of you who have watched Outlander (I haven’t but it’s now on my watch list!) and it provided a great place to get some tasty treats after our walk through the estate!
We followed this route from the brilliant Walkhighlands website and it was a lovely mix of riverside, woodlands, hills, views, farmland and interesting features such as the Bruce Tyndall Monument and the Witches’ Cave rock outcrop. However, my absolute favourite part was spotting my second ever red squirrel in Scotland which made my heart swell as these guys have had it pretty rough over the last 150 years or so.
A mix of deforestation of their beloved mixed woodland home, car accidents, predation by domestic pets, historical shooting, squirrel pox virus brought over by grey squirrels (which were purposefully released in Britain up until the 1920’s) and poor forestry management where trees with red squirrel nests are felled, are the main reasons these little guys aren’t doing so well. The Woodland Trust estimates there are around up to 160,000 left when it is thought there were once around 3.5 million living on our shores.
This article from Protect the Wild gives a run down of why the red squirrel is struggling so much and looks at how the simplified headline and human made issue of red squirrel vs. grey squirrel is much more complex than it first seems. Here is a snippet from the article:
‘It’s a little trite to simply say that ‘Grey Squirrels didn’t ask to be brought here’ but it’s also true. It’s also true to say that a lot of people find Greys just as ‘cute’ as Reds, enjoy seeing them, and don’t want to harm them. Major decisions about the wildlife in our hugely changed and nature-depleted countries can’t simply be based on whether we ‘like’ one species more than another, or whether we ‘value’ one species more than another. Attitudes to animals – as the historical persecution of Reds demonstrates – change.’
I know the timing is a bit crazy but as I’m typing right now a grey squirrel is perched on my bird bath and just took a sip of water. It just gave me a big burst of joy to spot this local wildlife member in my garden but also because I was able to provide it with some sustenance.
I think ideally we need to try and find a balance between having healthy populations of both the grey and red squirrels on our small island. I recently listened to this podcast episode from Scotland Outdoors which mentioned a potential solution. It included a section with Saving Scotland’s Squirrels and concentrated on the squirrel pox where there was interesting talk about the possible development of a squirrel pox vaccine. There are many other actions that are being taken to help increase red squirrel populations such as the reintroduction of pine martens which I wrote about in the October newsletter. Historically, red squirrels have evolved with pine martens and so are more adapted to evade these predators. So there is hope that these pine martens will include grey squirrels in their diet which might encourage red squirrels to bounce back. The Woodland Trust also has numerous long-term conservation projects in action to encourage red squirrels to thrive including planting trees to connect areas of woodland. So hopefully we’ll all have more red squirrel sightings in the future!
Wild Watch
Over the last couple of months I’ve started watching a YouTube channel about a bookshop based in the idyllic town of Frome, Somerset, called ‘Sherlock and Pages’. Their tagline is ‘Long Live the Hedgerows’ because the books they sell all celebrate the conservation passions of owners Agathe and Luke Sherlock (hence the name) - landscape, nature, history and heritage. This is right up my street! I have a small collection of my own landscape and nature books (see above), and I now know where to find my future ones.
Here’s a section from their website explaining a bit about why they started the bookshop:
‘And the bookshop? Luke and Agathe have both worked for over a decade in climate action and sustainability. Outside of work, Luke's passion is historic architecture and landscapes, as documented through his @englishpilgrim Instagram account. Both wanted community, passion and in the face of so much loss in the world, solidarity. So the idea was born. They'd start a bookshop that would be everything conservation. Real conservation of all we've inherited and all we are responsible to pass on. This would be a place of inspiration and debate, of community, beauty, and a dose of mischief too...’
Their most recent video to date is all about Luke visiting the London Book Fair where he chats with Paul Lamb, known as the West Country Hedgelayer, about his new book ‘Of Thorn and Briar - A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer’. Looping back to the importance of the bookshop tagline, Luke asks Paul why hedges are so important and this is what he had to say:
Hedgerows are probably the premier semi-natural habitat in the UK and they provide cover for a vast range, perhaps the majority, of our nesting birds and other farmland wildlife. So, although they were originally purposed as a field boundary, they are much more than that - a real asset to not just the farmer and his livestock, essentially they are a living fence, but also to the wildlife. And as we see a demise in our hedgerows, it correlates directly with a demise in biodiversity. So hedgerows really are an asset to the countryside.
I definitely have a visit to this vital bookshop on my list for when we’re next in the west country. In the meantime, they sell their books online on their lovely website so you can access these brilliant reads all year round. I think ‘Of Thorn and Briar’ will be my first purchase! They even sell a tote bag with the tagline ‘Long Live the Hedgerows’ : )
Wild Wares
Do you want to learn how to identify bird song this summer? The British Trust for Ornithology is running online courses this month and next called ‘Bird Sound ID in Summer’ for £24. They include two weekly sessions of around two hours each plus supported self-study exercises. What a fantastic way to become more connected to nature - I need to get this on my birthday list for sure!
Wild Win
Keep Britain Tidy have created a national litter picking campaign called The Great British Spring Clean which is running from March 21st and finishes in a couple of days time on April 6th. This is the 10th year they’ve run this essential campaign and what a difference it’s made:
‘Since 2016 our army of millions of amazing #LitterHeroes have shown they love where they live by pledging to pick more than four million bags of litter during the Great British Spring Clean - the nation’s biggest mass-action environmental campaign.’
You, a group or a school can pledge to pick up a bag of litter on the Keep Britain Tidy pledge page (check out their fab moving logo at the top of the page!). I find that litter picking is one of the easiest and quickest ways for me to feel better about the environment and of course you can do it at any time of the year but you could use this campaign to encourage others to do it with you too! I’m going to pledge to pick up a bag of litter as soon as I’ve sent off this newsletter and go on a plog tomorrow morning. Let’s all be #LitterHeros together!
With love and wild hope,
