Wild Hares and Hummingbirds

Naturalist and author Stephen Moss lives in one of the longest villages in England – Mark, on the Somerset Levels: a watery wonderland steeped in history.

This ancient country parish, dating from before the
Domesday Book
, has been reclaimed from the sea over many centuries. Today the landscape bears witness to its eventful past, and is criss-crossed with watery ditches and broad droves, down which livestock was once taken to market. These are now home to a rich selection of resident and visiting wildlife: rooks and roe deer; sparrows and snowdrops; buzzards, badgers and butterflies. Amongst these natural wonders are the ‘wild hares and hummingbirds’ of the book’s title: the iconic brown hare, and the spectacular hummingbird hawk-moth.

As the year unfolds, Moss witnesses the landscape as it passes from deep snow to spring blossom, through the heat haze of summer to the chill winds of autumn; from the first hazel catkins to the swallows returning from Africa; the sounds of the dawn chorus to the nocturnal mysteries of moths. But this is not simply the story of one small corner of the West Country; it also serves as a microcosm of Britain’s wider countryside, at this time of great change for both people and wildlife.

This is a very personal celebration of why the natural world matters to all of us, wherever we live.
Wild Hares and Hummingbirds
is nature-writing at its finest, expressed through the natural history of one very special place.

Stephen Moss is a naturalist, author, broadcaster and television producer. In a distinguished career at the BBC Natural History Unit his credits have included
Springwatch
,
Birds Britannia
and
The Nature of Britain
. He writes a monthly column on birdwatching for the
Guardian
, and regularly appears on BBC Radio 4. His previous books include
The Bumper Book of Nature
,
A Bird in the Bush
, and
A Sky Full of Starlings
. Originally from London, he has travelled to all seven of the world’s continents in search of wildlife. He now lives with his wife and children on the Somerset Levels.

OF ALL THE
creatures I have seen in my home village, the two most magical are wild hares and hummingbirds. Their lives rarely intersect with mine, so the times when they do are precious and memorable.

A glimpse of a long-legged animal disappearing into the night – a typical view of a hare – is something very special. No wonder our ancestors believed this leggy beast had magical powers.

A brief encounter with a hummingbird hawkmoth, as it hovers to feed on the buddleia bush in my garden, is even more exciting. Of course this aerobatic insect, a wanderer from the south, is not really a hummingbird at all. But it is still an extraordinary creature, whose mid-air manoeuvres match, and perhaps even surpass, those of its avian namesake.

These striking works of nature, the hare and the hawkmoth, are just two of the hundreds of different species – from swallows to snowdrops and badgers to bumblebees – that I come across in a typical year on my home patch.

T
HIS QUIET, COUNTRY
parish lies on the edge of the West Country, roughly halfway between the Mendip and
Polden
Hills, on the misty, marshy land known as the Somerset Levels. The village at its centre is, according to local legend, the longest in England, though rivals elsewhere in the country have been known to challenge this claim.

On a clear day, if you climb the ninety-four stone steps to the top of the church tower, you can see Cheddar Gorge to the north and Glastonbury Tor to the south. The cathedral city of Wells is just out of sight to the east; while towards the west, beyond the M5 motorway, lies Bridgwater Bay, with the Quantock Hills and Exmoor beyond.

The landscape here is steeped in history: of both the natural and human kind. This is where King Arthur is said to be buried, King Alfred burned the cakes, and the last pitched battle was fought on English soil, at Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. This is a place of wide, open skies, warm summers and chilly winters, and, above all, water. The land may appear solid and permanent, but it has been reclaimed, more recently than you might imagine, from the sea.

As in most villages up and down the country, foxes chase rabbits, badgers grub up worms, and jackdaws potter noisily around the ancient churchyard. At the height of summer, the back lanes are lined with cow parsley and willowherb, and the meadows brighten with carpets of buttercups. In winter, snowdrops force their way through the hard earth to bloom, and the calls of lapwings echo over the pale, frosty fields. From spring
to
autumn, the skies ring with the twittering of swallows, welcome visitors from their ancestral home in Africa.

This is more or less the sort of wildlife you would expect in any rural parish. But there are more unusual creatures here too. The small fields, with their watery boundaries, create a unique environment, full of nooks and crannies where plants and animals can thrive. So reed warblers sing their rhythmic, scratchy song from the ditches, while exquisite small copper butterflies flutter along the nearby droves. Roe deer are also found here, though they often go unnoticed because of their retiring habits. And, at dusk, a barn owl floats over waterlogged fields, on soft, silent wings.

A
S WELL AS
the imposing sixteenth-century church, the village boasts two pubs, a post office, a village hall, a boarding school for dyslexic children, a cricket ground, a bowling green, a thriving youth theatre and a martial arts club. Well over a thousand people make their home here, many of them incomers; some from elsewhere in Somerset, others, like me and my family, from further afield.

Each year, in the middle of August, the village gathers to celebrate the traditional Harvest Home, tucking into cold meats, salads and cider, followed by games, a children’s tea party, and an evening concert – the nearest we ever get to the world of rock and roll. But the most
important
moment of the day takes place when the guest speaker proposes a toast, and the villagers stand as one to raise their glasses ‘to agriculture’.

The fields of this parish have always been productive, turning grass, fertiliser and sheer hard work into lamb, beef and strong, cloudy cider. And although nowadays far fewer people make a living from farming than in the past, the way the land is managed still has a profound influence on its natural history.

Another way we use the land, which also shapes the fortunes of the parish wildlife, is easy to overlook: the village gardens. These range from lawns the size of a pocket handkerchief, and mown to the consistency of a billiard table, to tracts of land more than an acre in size, whose owners’ benign neglect has turned them into a welcome refuge for wild creatures.

As with every other community in Britain – whether in the countryside, the suburbs or the inner city – our human influence is everywhere. So if wildlife here is to survive, and especially if it is to thrive, it must live cheek by jowl with people, in our houses, barns, gardens and fields.

In recent years, like everywhere else in this crowded little island, we have witnessed great changes to our natural heritage. Older villagers recall how cuckoos used to drive them mad each spring with their incessant calling; yet nowadays the sound of the cuckoo is hardly ever heard here. Other birds have seen an upturn in their numbers during the same period. Once buzzards were shot on sight;
today
, on a warm summer’s morning, you may see half a dozen of these broad-winged raptors floating together in the sky. Both the decline of the cuckoo and the rise of the buzzard mirror these birds’ fortunes on a national scale.