Not everyone likes insects and we tend to have little awareness of them, save for those that drink nectar or blood. Some are delicately beautiful, some frighteningly hideous. More than a million species are known (25,000 in Britain) and perhaps five million more may exist unknown.

They first appeared more than 300 million years ago and their biomass vastly exceeds that of humans: about three quarters of all animals are insects, although the total population in Britain has been falling alarmingly.

They are astonishing masterpieces of miniaturised creation, their tiny, six-legged, three-part bodies capable of feats of survival, strength, flight, orientation, organisation, fecundity and quite possibly sentience that are hard to appreciate, let alone understand.

Most insects hatch from eggs into larvae of often unappealing kinds and so they may remain for years, periodically moulting into larger exoskeletons called cuticles. They emerge, transformed, from their final moult into wondrously intricate creatures, usually four-winged and compound-eyed, able, according to type, to fly, dig, swim, build, hunt, navigate or fight and desperately keen to mate and create successors.

Insects have no internal bones, lungs or active blood circulation, relying on passive oxygen transfer through hair-lined openings and various tubes within their haemolymph-filled bodies. Some make sounds. Their brains are partly in their heads — processing brilliant vision, antennae input and eating — and partly in decentralised ganglia elsewhere, which means that a beheaded insect may survive for a day or two until it starves.

More than half are vegetarian, most are potential food for other animals and many eat each other. Insects cannot grow bigger than they do because of their inability to absorb more oxygen. Millions of years ago, there was more oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere — 35% compared with 21% now — which enabled them to be larger. The shedding and regrowth of their carapaces also renders them periodically unstructured and helpless.

Their tiny size and light framework means they are proportionately much stronger than large animals, most of whose strength is needed to carry their substantial bodies. The biological physics of this, the square-cube law — a cross-section of insect muscle is relatively large compared with the mass it supports — is well understood by experts.

Insect wings, wafer-thin membranes of tissue powered by muscles working at the edge of biological possibility, beat in some cases at 1,000 times a second, faster than nervous systems can operate.

‘It is quite impossible to overlook the importance of insects,’ emphasises George McGavin, former curator at Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, one of Britain’s leading entomologists and an infectiously enthusiastic guide to the subject, who warns without hyperbole that ‘they are essential for the welfare of our planet’ to keep the ecosystem functioning.

He also observes that research indicates they probably feel pain, although not quite as fish, birds or mammals do. As the examples that follow demonstrate, we might consider ourselves much more accomplished than insects, but this could be a misconception. What is clear, however, is that, although we need insects, they do not need us.

'Only 2in long and lighter than a silk handkerchief'

After hatching, dragonflies spend up to five years underwater as carnivorous larvae, moulting a dozen times and eating prey such as tadpoles. Eventually, they climb a reed, unzip their larval skin and, perhaps with a frisson of joy, open two pairs of folded wings and transform into elegant, swift, airborne hunters with 360-degree vision, capable of reaching speeds of 40mph, hovering, moving sideways, backwards or vertically.

They occasionally catch hummingbirds in the US. Males often mate when flying in tandem with a captured female; if they land, he will fastidiously endeavour to empty her of any sperm she may already have acquired before supplying his own.

Dragonflies have quite astonishing range: globe skimmers (rare in Britain) are only 2in long, lighter than a silk handkerchief and can fly 3,700 miles at altitudes of up to 18,000ft.

'Strength wise, it's the equivalent of a carthorse carrying a whale'

Beetles, in more than 350,000 varieties — 4,000 in Britain alone — constitute 40% of all insects. The sturdy dung beetle, invaluable for tidying up the planet, can manoeuvre 1,000 times its own weight, the equivalent of a carthorse carrying a whale.

Their front wings form hard protective shields (elytra) for the back ones, which fold neatly below, enabling what Sir David Attenborough calls ‘rough tasks’, including digging into earth or wood. Elytra also enclose and retain enough air for some beetles to scuba dive. The metallic-green tiger beetle runs so fast that it outpaces its vision, having to pause to check where its prey is.

Stag beetles, Britain’s largest, are specialised for wrestling rivals with huge mandible ‘horns’. Fireflies and glow worms (both beetles) are bioluminescent to attract mates, the former producing flashing signals when aloft, the latter, flightless, a steady Earth-bound glow.

'A human athlete matching this could leap across Park Lane'

Grasshoppers can long-jump 20 times their own length — a human athlete matching this could leap across Park Lane. They possess powerful leg muscles and weigh very little, which helps, but also have an ability to wind part of their legs into tension, like a crossbow, which they release to supercharge their remarkable spring. (Fleas, without wings, have some elastic tissue that similarly assists their tremendous jumps: 40 times their body length).

Grasshoppers make sound by stridulation, rubbing their forewings against their hind legs. This insect violin-playing produces different chirping ‘songs’ according to species. It is, if you like that sort of thing, a kind of music, akin to the beguiling summer background of the cicada, a creature that spends up to 17 years as underground larva before emerging in synchronised profusion with millions of others to overwhelm the awaiting hungry birds.

Cicadas possess tymbals — vibrating membranes, natural tambourines — in their abdomens (some moths have these, too). Grasshoppers’ ears are in their abdomens, whereas crickets, their relatives, have theirs set conveniently on their forelegs.

'They can make bridges, rafts, acid and clones of themselves'

Ants are the world’s leading carnivores and constitute 20% of total land-animal biomass. They are essential to the ecosystem and Britain has more than 50 species, although not the fiercest.

Darwin called their brains ‘marvellous atoms of matter’. They possess an endogenous pedometer to record distance and a sort of internal sextant, to take mental bearings of the sun as they move about. Remembering these, they adjust for directional changes made when travelling and can march directly back to their nests. They rarely get lost.

It is difficult to comprehend how such minute mass-produced brains can achieve this— ours certainly can’t. There is prolific evidence about what ants actually do, but less certainty about how these activities are governed. Explanations such as collective intelligence, pheromone secretion, smell, neuron stimulus, genes, imitation or evolution raise as many questions as they answer.

Some ants keep slaves, some garden. Some farm aphids and enjoy drinking the honeydew secreted from their backsides. They can make bridges, rafts, acid and, in some cases, clones of themselves, as well as being able to carry many times their own bodyweight.

'They may recognise a human face and can learn by watching'

After roving in search of nectar to drink, later to be regurgitated as honey, bees inform their fellows where to find a discovered nectar source by ‘waggle dancing’ with varying degrees of pattern or intensity inside the hive. This exercise apparently tells the next patrol where to go.

How do they know how to dance or, indeed, how to interpret such dancing, should they encounter it? Bees have been observed using improvised tools, as chimpanzees do, they may recognise a human face, can learn by watching and probably feel pain —especially when attacked by wasps, from which they evolved.

'May travel 100 miles in its three-week lifetime'

With their nocturnal relatives moths, butterflies are renowned for the colours, patterns and textures of their captivating, seemingly fragile, minutely scaled wings. (The scales are flattened hairs.) However, they can be remarkably energetic. The humble cabbage white, weighing only 0.05oz and with a wingspan of 1½in, may travel 100 miles in its three-week lifetime.

More impressive are painted ladies, weighing less than a gram, millions of which fly at 1,500ft and 30mph to England from North Africa and back, surviving wind, rain and storm, guided by the sun. Richard Fox of Butterfly Conservation calls them ‘sophisticated travellers with a brain the size of a pinhead’.

Moth caterpillars, meanwhile, wrap themselves in silk. This, although ‘little more than insect spittle,’ notes Dr McGavin, is a wondrous substance, both in strength and texture, first exploited in neolithic China. Strands of silk, extraordinarily thin, are as strong as steel of similar gauge, smooth and elastic, too. Ballgowns and fine underwear are gifts from the chrysalis. Britain’s only indigenous silk moth is the emperor. Tiger moths can thwart bats’ hunting radar.

'They construct huge mounds, some resembling Gaudí’s cathedrals'

In Australia and elsewhere, termite communities of hundreds of thousands, focused on a distended queen (who may live to 40, kept productive by a tiny, energetic consort), construct huge mounds, some resembling Gaudí’s cathedrals, others large gravestones. These may be 20ft high, with much deeper basements, and are air-conditioned with chimneys, vaults, passages and nurseries. How this is achieved, in the dark, by minute, deaf workers, remains unknown.

'May live without their heads for several days'

The unpopular cockroach can tolerate extremes of temperature and may live without food for several weeks, air for 45 minutes or their heads for several days. They have high radiation resistance and would probably survive atomic war.

'Champions of fecundity'

Fruit flies are champions of fecundity, producing up to 26 generations in a year, and are invaluable for medical research because 70% of our genes have fruit-fly equivalents.

Aphids, meanwhile, reproduce parthenogenetically (no sex required), some-times supplying overwhelming quantities of themselves — only to be consumed by ladybird beetles, which will eat their own offspring when they finish the aphids.

This feature originally appeared in the July 29, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

There are two key moments in the year when wood pigeons can be enjoyed to their best advantage. In the breeding season, our largest and heaviest pigeon performs an impressive aerial display. The bird’s flight is strong and direct, but on these occasions an individual surges forward high above the trees, then rises dramatically with more exaggerated beats, so that the upper wings often come together above the back in a loud, feathery clap. This achieved, it then sails down in an open-winged glide to repeat the manoeuvre, sometimes over and over.

The second moment is as much a signifier of season, although it comes earlier, at a point of transition from winter to spring. It is when the ivy berries finally ripen into thick black clusters amid the evergreen foliage. Wood pigeons love these life-saving fruits, which appear at a time of food scarcity sometimes called ‘the hungry gap’. If the ivy crop is good, the birds return to feast on them for days. They get so engrossed that they can lose any wariness and to reach particularly lustrous bunches they will clamber almost upside down, with white-barred wings outspread for balance.

In these contorted postures, the pigeon’s colours are vivid against the neutral background: the vinous breast, the deep almost bluish slate of the back and the iridescent lozenge at its neck, shining green.

Wood pigeons may be embedded in our sense of the British countryside, yet they join the Unloved Birds’ Club for much the same reason that consigns nine other species to the list. Quite simply, it is a matter of success. Wood pigeons have flourished in the 21st century, with their numbers hugely increasing from some three million pairs to an estimated 5.2 million today. There is barely a 10km census square in these islands, even in the treeless north of Scotland, where the birds don’t now breed.

They are almost entirely vegetarian and seldom aggressive. On the contrary, they routinely fall victim themselves and are a food source for predators, particularly sparrowhawks, goshawks and peregrines. They can even be taken by carrion crows.

Wood pigeon success isn’t founded on belligerence, but on adaptability. A wood-dwelling species, it will — if necessary — lay its eggs on open ground. Wood pigeons capitalise where natural foods are abundant. On moorlands, for instance, they feast on bilberries, then on the orange fruits of rowan trees. They survive equally in inner cities, where they regularly attend bird tables.

The bird’s capacious crop allows it to clean up in double quick time and, for these reasons, it can be an unwelcome — and expensive — garden visitor. Yet wood pigeons are seen at their deepest disadvantage, at least in the eyes of farmers and arable growers of all kinds, when their numbers are at a maximum after the breeding season.

In peak periods, there may be as many as 15 million wood pigeons in Britain, which equates to something like 8,000 tons of roving, flexible, hungry birds in search of grain, fruit or agricultural greens. They can be a scourge on allotments, raiding brassicas and beans even in peoples’ gardens. Farmers can suffer significant losses to their crops, ranging from oil-seed rape and peas to fruits of almost any kind. The bird can be shot on licence and the national bag is estimated at 3.6 million, many of which are eaten.

The wood pigeon may have an undisputed place in the Unloved Birds’ Club, but that it also feeds us is surely a mitigating factor. Pigeon breasts produce dark, rather livery meat that many judge delicious. They are widely sold and are occasionally prized on restaurant menus. This source of food is now unique among our gamebirds in one specific sense: the wood pigeon population flourishes without the slightest planned assistance from us.

There is one last element that might influence our final judgement on the species. Wood pigeons have a lovely, soft, crooning seven-note song, which continues as a drowsy chorus late into August and long after all other birds have ceased to sound. It is, therefore, a creature that appeals to our senses of hearing, taste, and sight — perhaps we can learn to forgive them a few pilfered greens.

This feature originally appeared in the July 22, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

In the past few years, 110 UK councils have declared ‘a Nature emergency’. If those worthy declarations could be backed by one meaningful change, then rethinking our relationship with insects would probably deliver the single biggest uplift in our environment.

Insects represent at least a quarter of all wild species in these islands. Almost all of the flowering plants in Britain — in fact, most of the 340,000 species known worldwide —are dependent upon insects to complete their reproduction. This has been true for 100 million years and it means the very greenness of the planet is a byproduct of insects.

The fertilising services of these creatures are also of huge economic value for humankind. It is calculated that insect pollination accounts for every third forkful of food we put in our mouths, from apricots to courgettes and the coffee in our cups to the apple in our pie. In total, that specific function has an estimated value of $400 billion a year worldwide.

We should note, however, that this is probably as nothing compared with insects’ additional roles as the recyclers of nutrients and of biodegradable refuse. We need pollinating insects and not only the much-loved, if over-emphasised, honey-bee.

Pollination is performed by an enormous variety of insect types, including moths and beetles. Chocolate is produced courtesy of flies and we owe our tomatoes to bumblebees. All of that vital, life-giving work is free of charge, too.

Insects are so much more than their utilitarian ‘assets’, however. Butterflies, such as the blue morpho, are among the most dazzlingly beautiful creatures that have ever existed. Their diversity is breathtaking. There is a stick insect in China that can grow to the length of an adult’s arm and yet fairy bees are so small that five could line up end to end on a finger nail.

Named insects represent half of all documented life forms and their numbers are mind boggling. For every human, there may be as many as 2.5 million ants. By biomass alone, ants can represent four times more than all the mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians in an area of rainforest.

No one has been more eloquent about our indebtedness to insects than the late American entomologist E. O. Wilson. His best corrective to our sense of hubris is his observation that: ‘If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.’

More succinct, however, was his summary of their centrality to life on Earth. Insects are, he wrote, ‘the little things that run the world’.

This feature originally appeared in the July 29, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Even at 3am in high summer, it is not dark and, in the stillness out over the saltings, I can see gulls flying. They drift inland in threes and fours and the tide runs in beneath them. When daylight seeps into the sky at 4am, I find myself standing among thousands of empty crab shells. Somewhere down on the sea bed, out beyond the estuary, the ragged-clawed creatures have shed their exoskeletons to grow. Their old shells are ghosts among the spartina grass.

Cley next the Sea in north Norfolk, at the mouth of the River Glaven — named for the village of Glandford, once Gleamford, or ‘merry ford’ in Old English — looks to the North Sea. If you rain a straight line north from Cley, there would be nothing but ocean. That line would run clean between Svalbard and Greenland. Two thousand miles further, it hits the pack ice of the North Pole.

Between the 13th and 15th centuries, Cley was one of the busiest ports in Europe. The Glaven estuary ran deep then and could accommodate large merchant ships; Cley thrived on sending East Anglian wool to Europe. Now, the river is a narrow winding channel and its medieval might is difficult to imagine. From 1522, the estuary was drained to create grazing for cattle, a process that gradually led to the river silting up; it would be unrecognisable now to the merchants and Cley pirates who made their fortunes here.

Morning, as early birds catch worms

Shortly after 6am, three figures are sitting on upturned buckets on the sweeping shingle beach. As I draw closer, I see they are fishing. Each has a couple of rods set up with lines running into the waves. Roy, who tells me he has lived next to the sea all his life, has already caught three bass: ‘I’ve always liked fishing, it’s the air and looking to sea.’ He reels in his line, attaches a new worm onto the hook and casts again. The fishing has changed, he says: ‘We used to get codling all the time, but never bass. Now we do get bass, you see, and flounders if we’re lucky, perhaps a sole.’

Two shelduck fly past, low over the water. Now that Roy is getting older and his back starting to go, he relies on his brother to dig bait. ‘Where does he do that?’ I ask. Roy laughs. ‘You can’t be asking people where they dig their bait. We keep that a secret. It’s dug somewhere out on the mud.’ He nods in the direction of Blakeney and goes back to fishing.

Some 600 years ago, Blakeney and Cley were the same estuary with different channels, but whereas Cley was drained, Blakeney, to the west, has largely endured.

At 10.30am, four little children stand shrieking on the harbour wall there. They hold orange crabbing lines and croissants from the nearby bakery. One boy drops his croissant into the water and a herring gull swoops for it from a pile mooring.

Down on the mud, where water meets land, Trevor, a man in shorts and Wellington boots, is tending to his boat. He has a tub of white paint and is standing back to assess his work. Rosie, his little wooden dingy, ‘got a crack in it. I just put some white on there you see, after a bit of wood skin varnish, and then I’ll properly see to it this winter’. He usually only sails out to Blakeney Point. ‘I used to go to see the seals, but they’ve moved further on now.’ The seals, Trevor explains, were ‘on that gravel spit’ — he points to the horizon with his paint brush — ‘but then there was a big storm in the winter and it cut right through’. The whole estuary has changed and is always changing: ‘Up at the churchyard, there’s a wall that looks down over the Glaven and you can see big metal rings where the boats used to tie up. It’s nowhere near the sea now.’

Further out on the mud, an egret probes for crabs and, some 40 yards away, Will, a bait digger, is working away with his fork. The sand comes up black where he turns it over. He identifies the worm casts: ‘That tells you where the lugworms are.’ It isn’t a game of chance — he works the sand methodically, looking fixedly at the mud. When the worm comes up, he catches it between forefinger and thumb before it can disappear. Nodding into the distance in no particular direction, he points out that his work isn’t simply a means to an end: ‘When you’re out there digging, it’s just you.’

Midday, in the heat of the sun

At 1pm, I have lunch with David Diggens, who formerly ran the Norfolk Rivers Trust. We sit by a rusted house boat to eat crab and drink local wine. A wildfowler, fisherman and river conservationist, he knows the estuary as well as anybody: ‘The only reliable thing in life is constant change, and that is exactly what’s happening at Blakeney all the time.’

There is no wind and the temperature is approaching 30ºC. Small children in bad moods trudge by and passing dogs pant in the heat. ‘In terms of nature, the biggest changes here are the terns declining and the seals arriving,’ David observes. ‘The bass are now coming earlier and in greater numbers because of the change in sea temperature.’ The first grey seal pup birth was seen at Blakeney in 1988 and the population has been expanding ever since.

One of the great challenges, he explains, is the influx of tourists in the summer. Blakeney village runs largely on septic tanks — more people means more sewage. According to Bernard Bishop, wildlife warden at Cley for 40 years and still living in the house where he was born, there was once a famous mussel fishery here, but there are no edible mussels now.

After lunch, we walk out onto the mud and David picks samphire, which is just coming into season. He is an optimist and hopeful for wildlife in Norfolk. All it takes is for more people to care, but quite how you persuade them of the importance of biodiversity in all its forms is tricky, we agree. He hands me a small bunch of what is also known as St Peter’s herb, Peter being the patron saint of fishermen. ‘Only ever take as much samphire as you plan to eat that night for supper,’ he advises, a sentiment that goes for many things in life.

Late afternoon, in the cool of the church

The large wooden door of the Church of St Margaret’s, Cley, is open at 4pm, so I slip in and wander up the red pamment aisle. All around on the walls, but grown faint down the centuries, are medieval carvings of boats. It is thought they were etched by sailors as offerings before they set out on potentially dangerous voyages.

I sit in the back pew for a while listening to the wood pigeons cooing among the roof timbers — probably ships’ timbers originally — and then for an hour or so I sleep. When I wake, it is 5pm and I head out into the graveyard. The heat has passed and I wander among the headstones. There are local names, some I recognise, and at least three or four inscribed memorials for men lost at sea. Probably many more exist, but rain and time have eaten away at the stones.

I clamber sleepily over the back wall of the churchyard. The drop on the other side is lower than I anticipated and, when I pick myself up, I find I’m looking down over the Glaven, where the surrounding meadows are full of freshly cut hay. In spite of feeling that I’ve explored every inch of the church wall, I still can’t find Trevor’s ‘big metal rings where boats used to tie up’.

Eventide, as the long day closes

In the George & Dragon on the High Street in Cley, I order a pint, and then I order another, studying the black-and-white photographs of Cley past that hang on the pub walls. One, which must have been taken from a small plane in the early 20th century, shows the vast mud flats then in front of the village. In another, older still, there is a shooting party in a small boat, heading out from the famous Cley Windmill. It is 1886, the river is wide and the ladies are wearing hats.

At the bar, a semi-inebriated argument about how to pronounce Cley is taking place. ‘It is “clay”,’ says one of the old boys. ‘The tourists are right. You ought to say it like clay. That’s how they used to say it.’ Everyone laughs and I have no idea if he’s serious or otherwise (nowadays, it’s generally ‘cly’, to rhyme with ‘rye’).

By 10pm, it is getting dark and the town seems deserted when I wander down to the windmill. Bernard told me that the sails on the fantail used to clang in the breeze, keeping the whole village awake at night; now, they are chained up and there is silence. The Glaven, which runs beneath the windmill so slowly that you can hardly discern it is flowing at all, is little more than a trickle; it is possible almost to jump across it to the mud where the Randall family still cuts reed for local thatchers.

A warm wind rises and I listen to see if I can hear a bittern boom. The sky to the west is electric pink and a barn owl passes, hunting low in the half light.

This feature originally appeared in the July 15 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

Far from being mere exercises in nostalgia, the regeneration of lidos, piers and other historic coastal properties can be a powerful contemporary force for good — but only if those embarking on such projects think strategically.

That was the message of the Valuing Seaside Heritage Symposium, organised by Historic Buildings & Places, which convened at Saltdean Lido in East Sussex last month. Representatives from national and local conservation bodies ranging from the Seaside Heritage Network to Historic England gathered to share lessons learned from half a century of work and reflect on ways forward.

Now that the mass domestic tourism that built Britain’s seaside resorts is a thing of the past, how can their futures be safeguarded? Securing the investment required to revitalise them and help them flourish once again is far from straightforward. Council-owned assets around the country have closed in droves over the past three decades due to prohibitive maintenance costs, with seafront buildings particularly vulnerable to the elements.

The current Government’s Levelling Up initiative was not focused on the coast and, although in March 2024 a dedicated Government fund to ‘support enhancements to our seaside heritage’ was announced, at the time of writing the proposed funding stream has not yet been developed.

The National Lottery Fund has awarded more than £200 million to seaside regeneration projects, including Hastings Pier and Margate’s Dreamland, but grants are competitive and the bid-writing process complex.

Despite these challenges, the symposium identified grounds for optimism. The creative industries — the fastest-growing section of Britain’s economy — have proved time and again that they can deliver a transformative shot in the arm to coastal communities. Attendees heard testimonials from Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, where grassroots cultural projects are bringing the town’s theatrical heritage into the present day, and Folkestone in Kent, where the Old High Street has become the heart of an attractive and vibrant creative quarter.

‘People said it was an overnight success, but actually when it came alive, we were 14 years into the [regeneration] project,’ said Alastair Upton of Creative Folkestone, the Arts charity that has spearheaded the town’s transformation. Speakers highlighted the importance of thinking long-term. Although one-off injections of cash are welcome, developers and charities alike must never lose sight of long-term viability.

Key to this is carefully staging restoration projects, said Matthew Mckeague of the Architectural Heritage Fund. He pointed to Grange Lido in Cumbria and Tarlair’s sea-cliff pool in Aberdeenshire, both of which have seen buildings refurbished so that they can become revenue-generating once again as a first step before costly work restoring the pools gets under way. This sort of phasing allows those in charge to ‘build a business model over time and learn who the market is,’ he said.

Projects with community involvement from the get-go stand a much higher chance of succeeding, not least because they are more likely to become financially self-sustaining all year round rather than only during the warmer months. A case in point is Saltdean Lido itself, considered the pinnacle of lido architecture and rescued from a long decline in 2022: it is now home to a gym with 600 local members, a popular community library and cafés and event facilities, as well as the restored pool.

Clevedon Pier in Somerset, dubbed England’s most beautiful by Sir John Betjeman and the country’s only Grade I-listed example, has weathered numerous storms under the care of the community-focused Clevedon Pier & Heritage Trust. Another success story is Penzance’s Jubilee Pool in Cornwall, the country’s most famous saltwater tidal lido: a significant proportion of the £1.8 million initial refurbishment investment was community shares, which made the people of Penzance part-owners.

‘You can see the regeneration it has spurred around the town,’ said Mckeague. However, he stressed the importance of drawing up business plans that are weatherproof, both literally and figuratively. ‘Community ownership isn’t a panacea. You still have to do all of the thinking.’

Seaside conservation groups are keeping a close eye on the Government’s new ‘Pride in Place’ scheme, which will see up to £5 billion given to some 250 areas across the UK with a focus on long-term improvements. With the UK now a member of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, they are also hoping that the seaside holiday might be recognised as an example of living heritage, with all the attendant protections.

Meanwhile, although the days of the default bucket-and-spade holiday are long gone, a growing social-media-driven appetite for outdoor swimming and increasingly hot summers are making trips to the coast ever more tempting — and momentum is building behind seaside heritage projects as a result. One such is Ramsgate’s Marina Bathing Pool in Kent, which was closed in 1975 to make way for an unloved car park. The Ramsgate Heritage Lab is in discussions with Thanet District Council and a developer to revive it, and believes bringing the lido back to life could set a new and more sustainable course for the town’s future.

‘It is our responsibility not only to value seaside heritage because it tells us where we’ve come from, but because it can tell us where we’re going,’ said Rob Kenyon, its CEO.

This feature originally appeared in the July 22, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

I recall vividly sitting once with the acclaimed plein-air artist Kurt Jackson in his adopted Cornwall. As he worked, he kept looking intently back at the sunless Atlantic horizon. ‘Grey,’ he suddenly burst forth, ‘it’s such a beautiful colour!’ I can already hear readers asking: grey? For those who need convincing of its extraordinary aesthetic impacts, I recommend the sight of herring gulls flying over snow-covered fields.

The birds seem to gather the light in their underwings — ‘like candles in the night’ was how Henry David Thoreau described the effect. Yet the grey on their upper wings acquires an almost ethereal quality and it glistens and sparkles more intensely than the snow itself. Our ancestors knew this aspect, because when they named the herring gull they made it Larus argentatus, which means ‘ornamented with silver’.

In some ways, the beauty of herring gulls is at its most impressive when the birds gather in flocks above the city refuse dump. Back and forth goes the enormous bulldozer blade, driving the great multi-coloured tides of rubbish, and over everything the silver-winged gulls hover and rise and fall, feasting on our abundant waste. The birds thus reclaim our excess as a thing of natural beauty. Ironically, it is these adaptations made by a seabird to a world dominated by our species that has brought it into disrepute.

A good example is the herring gull’s change of nesting habits. It once bred almost exclusively on coastal cliffs, but in the early part of the 20th century it made a double shift from seashore to inland localities and from rock-face to rooftop.

The pioneers of the new habits began in towns such as Dover in Kent and quickly adopted a suite of settings amid factory tops, churches, chimneystacks, aircraft hangars and hotels, but also domestic houses. The behaviour then passed from town to town and long since travelled inland to major cities, including London.

One of the problems arising is that herring gulls make noisy neighbours. The birds are famous for an extraordinary vocalisation called the ‘long call’ when an adult begins with head facing downwards. The sound is one part hysterical wail, one part manic laughter, but, as it reaches the emotional climax and maximum volume, the bird throws its head high over its back. It is magnificent to see and to hear, albeit not perhaps at 4am.

Add to this the copious guano from the adults and chicks, then the stale food and huge stick-and-seaweed nest choking your gutter with debris, and it’s understandable why rooftop herring gulls are not always welcome. The birds can then literally add injuries to insult, because people passing below are viewed as possible threats to their offspring. Like all good parents, the adult gulls will defend their genes, sometimes swooping on the humans unawares.

Rooftop nesting by gulls has been a cause célèbre for some cities such as Gloucester, where the colony is more than 2,000 pairs, although the number comprises mainly lesser black-backed gulls. Alas, the choice of nest site is only one in a string of complaints. Gulls have been accused of killing small dogs, of brazenly walking into seaside shops and helping themselves to snacks, of routinely scattering the contents of rubbish bins across the streets and — heartlessly — snatching ice cream from the hands of small children.

MPs have made speeches in the House of Commons, warning of ‘gull wars on our high streets’. In Berwick-on-Tweed, vigilantes were reported to have taken matters into their own hands and shot gulls. Reminding people that herring gulls make grey beautiful may not cut it as a counter argument.

However, what about the fact they are now red-listed in Britain, having suffered massive declines? Despite wide perception that the birds have prospered by coming into our towns and cities, the switch in lifestyle is starting to look like necessity. Gulls are essentially sea-going birds.

Yet the 1960s coastal population has fallen from 286,000 pairs to 130,000 today. It has probably remained constant for several decades, although this apparent stability disguises the extent to which the species is now dependent upon roof nesting. We may yet have to learn to live with the herring gulls among us.

This feature originally appeared in the print edition of Country Life on July 15, 2026. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The river keeper

Getting soaked by freezing Upper Test water has happened more than a few times, as I have been known to believe I’m taller than I am, especially in waders,’ laughs Michael Taplin, river keeper at Wherwell Priory in Hampshire. ‘It also means I am on my third mobile phone and counting, having lost the previous ones to the river.’

His career path was an obvious one: he grew up a stone’s throw from the River Test and next to the boundary between the Houghton Fishing Club and the Leckford estate. He fished with his father and grandfather, messed around on the river after school and spent time with family friends who worked as river keepers. His employment is, he says: ‘My job, life and passion. Like any keepering role, it cannot be viewed as work, but more of a vocation.’

During winter, when the banks are empty of fishermen, major projects are carried out: constructing bridges, re-building banks, tree work, moving whole river channels, creating large wetland areas and digging new lakes. The summer is predominantly about managing the river and banks, with mowing, strimming and weed cutting. As well as maintenance, the role includes guiding experienced fishermen or teaching newcomers about chalk-stream fishing.

The appeal is that the environment is constantly changing: ‘No two seasons are the same and it fascinates me how altering one thing affects everything else down the line, whether that be weed growth, gravels, fly life or where the fish hold in a particular stretch of water.’ Taplin explains: ‘In my opinion, the basis of everything is weed. Ranunculus is the most important for us here. With ranunculus comes cleaner water, a sustained level, more fly life and happier trout. It needs flow and light to grow, so, generally, with a good winter of rainfall, a decent flow of water and some spring sunshine, it thrives. Then we can cut and shape the weed in order to maintain a healthy fishery. Observing these changes and drawing patterns is what helps me to continually improve the health of the river and, with that, improve the quality of fishing and the experience of being alongside it.’ Mary Skipwith

The open-water swimmer

Belle Kennedy found her appreciation of water changed dramatically when she went to university in the maritime city of Plymouth, where she is studying ocean science and marine conservation.

‘I used to be a competitive swimmer when young, but it left me with a difficult relationship both with water and swimming,’ she says. ‘Since coming to Plymouth, I have got massively into swimming in open water, which has changed how I view the coast and made me want to protect it. Tinside beach is especially popular here — as soon as the sun comes out, everyone is paddling and swimming — but, unfortunately, it is also popular with sewage. It has been a shock to discover how dirty the sea can be. You can’t see it physically — the water isn’t brown — which is why sewage alerts are really important. In 2025, it was the most polluted beach in England and Wales.’

Kennedy volunteers for the Rock Pool Project, a community movement collecting data on marine species, and for Surfers Against Sewage, a campaign group involving anyone using the sea. ‘The more volunteering I do, the more conscious I have become as to how fragile these ecosystems are. The pollution isn’t only affecting people, but wildlife, too. The Rock Pool Project is a great way to collect data, you get to connect with local people and it’s fun.’

She joined Surfers Against Sewage as a regional rep this year and answered a call-out to organise a nationwide paddle-out to raise awareness of pollution; more than 50 coastal locations joined in, making it one of the biggest turn-outs for years. ‘I’d seen it on social media before and I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity,’ Kennedy explains. ‘It was such a wonderful event, with a sense of collective care. It felt deeply humbling and was also a reality check, that the problem doesn’t only weigh on me, it weighs on others.’

The main aim of the event is to lobby water companies, calling on them to be accountable and to organise long-term fixes. ‘It is inevitable that it becomes political, but it is annoying,’ Kennedy comments. ‘Clean water should be a basic expectation. I think public awareness has shifted significantly. These conversations once felt confined to government circles, but now people are aware of the wider failures of water companies and the dangers of getting into dirty water. There is a strong sense that public pressure does matter.’ Kate Green

The wetlands scientist

Lizzie Grayshon, an ecologist at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) charity for 11 years, works mainly on wetland conservation in the Avon valley, which links Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire. This involves monitoring water quality, restoring wader bird numbers, releasing water voles and working with the local Farmer Cluster, part of a 100-plus-strong initiative in which groups of farmers work together to revive biodiversity relevant to their area.

Here, that is principally providing habitat for wader chick rearing and improving water quality. ‘Everyone is connected by the river and the flood plain,’ she explains. ‘It’s a beautiful place. There are not only waders, but meadow specialists — reed warblers, meadow pipits, cirl buntings and marsh harriers. We’ve had a huge gaggle of geese this year and loads of cattle egrets. As much as the marsh harriers cause problems for the waders, their presence is a good [biodiversity] indicator, although yesterday I saw one take a lapwing chick — you do have mixed feelings.

‘It is a protected area, but it is farmed and managed with grazing [mostly by cattle] and hay cutting, so has a nice mosaic of habitats. We advocate best-practice lethal and non-lethal control of predator species, which here include protected ones, such as buzzards, red kites and goshawks. Climate change plays a part; we are a relatively natural flood plain — one minute it’s under water, the next, it’s bone dry.’

The much-loved water vole is another helpful indicator of wetland health, a once-abundant native species that has declined through habitat loss and predation. Grayshon has been involved in an eight-year focus to identify and remove its chief enemy, the mink: ‘They really limit water voles’ recovery and success. We have been encouraging landowners to use their mink rafts [which float and detect the mustelids through their footprints], plus we supply traps and camera alarms.’

Wetlands provide a great natural cleaning service: they take in phosphates and absorb pollution, plus they are useful indicators of water quality and pollution sources. ‘Farming tends to take the rap, but is by no means responsible for all of it — there are a lot of people and villages and towns,’ says Grayshon. ‘We are under pressure here because the river meadows are SSSI-protected and there’s a designated inland bathing area at Fordingbridge, so testing has increased. There’s definitely a shift in public perception and councils, water companies and farmers are under more obligation to improve water health.’ KG

The river restorer

Phil Wright had been in the military for nearly 21 years when he was medically discharged with conflict PTSD in December 2021. It followed a couple of harrowing tours in Afghanistan when he had been seconded to an army special investigation branch and was ‘basically, dealing with death’.

He was directed to the charity Supporting Wounded Veterans and, through its mentoring programme, joined the Rivers’ Forum, its initiative to tackle pollution and simultaneously develop career opportunities for veterans. His first job was a pilot testing project on the River Dart in Devon using various methodologies and equipment including auto- and satellite testers. ‘I was on the upper Dart, which is remote and right up on the moor. It’s a spectacular river and one I knew well from Totnes down from Dartmouth from my time in the Navy,’ Wright explains. ‘I have had some mental-health struggles, but water is a very calming environment and being around it doesn’t really feel like work.’

Wright, an angler (mainly carp) and a canoeist (he was off to paddle the Great Glen in Scotland last month), also works for the Western Sussex Rivers Trust, which looks after the Lavant and Rother. ‘That job is currently less “rivery”,’ he explains. ‘I am on a temporary contract doing admin and finance, plus some geo-spatial mapping work, but I will be getting into river restoration work. Since I started, I have been massively surprised by how unclean some rivers are, despite appearances, with pollution and loss of biodiversity. A lot of work is needed. It’s completely new stuff for me to learn, really fascinating.

'Since being discharged, I have struggled to find a sense of purpose — quite a common experience for veterans — but this work has given it to me. Merely working for a wage is not good for the head.’ KG

The water campaigner

Katie Alcott, founder of international charity Frank Water, realised at first hand the problems caused by filthy water when she was 19 and working in a school in Kashmir in India. She took her customary two-litre bottle of water with her when out to supper with a local family, but, when it ran out during a hot curry, she drank their water: ‘Within half an hour, I was well acquainted with the bathroom.’

Those few swigs led to a three-year struggle with amoebic dysentery. ‘I knew nothing then — in the UK, we have the NHS, we turn on taps. You are unlikely to get unwell here from drinking tap water,’ she says. ‘A few weeks after getting ill, I noticed that beyond the junior part of the school, there were hardly any girls. The headmistress explained that it was water related — as soon as a girl can carry 10 litres of water, they are kept busy at home, plus they are off school when they are menstruating. This totally shocked me. I realised that families were living off water from an open well that was filthy — people had even fallen into it and died — and from a river where buffalos were pooping, not to mention humans. I realised how many opportunities women were missing out on through water.’

Much of Frank Water’s work is abroad, in places where water shortages are causing environmental migration and where huge quantities of water are being used to supply the western world, such as with rice-growing in India. ‘A lot of our work is about how water flows. Then there comes a greater respect and love for it. We work with nature, looking at geology and hydrology, where rock is porous and where it can charge to the aquifer successfully, ensuring that solutions are natural.’ Now, however, there can no longer be complacency about water in the UK — in the week of this interview, customers of South East Water had no supplies. ‘Our work is focused on seeing water as part of the whole system. Every drop counts,’ Alcott explains.

‘We have plentiful rain in the UK, but we have become disconnected from the water cycle. We have tarmacked miles of city centres, we are putting down fake turf and paving over front lawns to park cars. We are still building houses that flush lavatories with drinking-quality water — that’s bonkers. The rain has nowhere to go — it’s zooming down storm drains into rivers, taking rubbish with it. We’re sleepwalking into an ecological disaster.’

She adds: ‘It is more of a landscape issue in Britain. Farmers are under pressure to grow food for people and animals and the soil isn’t able to use water as it once would have done: it isn’t healthy enough to soak it up and let it re-percolate into the right places. We have seen water purely as a resource and have managed it to the nth degree instead of working with it. It’s not being held in the right places — or enough places — hence destructive floods.’

Alcott observes that if access to water is improved, people automatically use more of it. ‘With new housing stock, there should be a policy that they all have rainwater storage and use grey water to flush loos. Everyone should be self-sufficient in the hottest months.’ KG

The dowser

John Baker discovered he could divine water during a random post-Sunday-lunch game with friends some 30 years ago. ‘Someone had seen it in a magazine and thought it a good idea to have a dabble,’ he recalls. ‘A pair of L-shaped metal rods pointing outwards like six-guns were shoved in my hand and we were told to walk down a drive. It felt extremely silly. All of a sudden, the rods swung against me and my host explained that I was standing over the water pipe to the greenhouse. Then, after a few paces, the rod swung out, which was even more bizarre. That turned out to be because of an electrical current running to lights in the orchard. I was quite amazed.’

Baker, who then ran his own construction business, explains most dowsers discover their capability by accident. ‘You certainly can’t force it — you’re like a dummy waiting for something to happen. After a while, you realise you can tune your subconscious mind into looking for something specific, like tuning a radio. You learn to use your conscious and unconscious mind together — Nature’s answer to Google.’ Wanting to discover ‘if I was going mad or not’, he joined a local archaeological group where he was initially ‘treated with disdain as the weirdo with the rod. Then they twigged that I could save them a lot of digging. You can find anything under the ground if you can find water’.

His work now may involve searching for crypts under churches, looking for wells — ‘these can be dangerous if they collapse’ — and working with construction companies to investigate for leftover war ordnance or with landscape designers to check for springs. ‘This planet is covered with tens of millions of springs and building work can shift them around. Yesterday, I was with a friend who wanted to check if they really needed a new boiler. I don’t think they do — they’ve just got a leaky pipe. What I do is Marmite: you either accept it works or you pooh-pooh it. People think the computer is the great innovator, but we forget we have a brain that is a million times better than any computer and we’re not using it.’ KG

John Baker teaches dowsing and is the author of ‘One Man and his Rods’, available from the British Society of Dowsing

The campaigner for fish

'I had had a lifelong obsession with fish and rivers,’ admits Nick Measham, chief executive of WildFish. ‘My parents bought me a fishing rod when we were on holiday in Scotland when I was 10, which fuelled the passion. I’ve gone full circle to messing about with rivers again, although admittedly in a more serious way than playing Poohsticks.’

In 2014, Measham landed with WildFish, the only independent charity in the UK that campaigns for wild fish and their environment. It came about after a stint volunteering to help run the monitoring of phosphate pollution coming from cress farms into nearby rivers. ‘Our goal is healthy, sustainable populations of wild fish,’ he explains. ‘Fish are at the apex of the biodiversity crisis. We work on evidence and we use the law when needed to hold the Government and its regulators to account.’

Campaigns by WildFish focus on ‘what fish want’, which is healthy water and connected rivers. According to Measham, the UK’s rivers and coastal waters are in a poor state. More than 80% of rivers fail the Water Framework Directive’s standard of ‘good’, a minimum acceptable outcome. ‘Our rivers are special because they are unique habitats that are home to rare life — Atlantic salmon and freshwater pearl mussels, as well as plants and invertebrates — which are critical to maintaining biodiversity,’ he explains. ‘Protecting these endangered species is central; if we fix it for salmon, we fix it for everything that swims, including us. We do this by tackling the causes rather than mitigating the symptoms.’

This means reducing abstraction (extracting water from natural resources), stopping pollution from sewage and agriculture, removing barriers to migration and ending open-net salmon farming. ‘Wherever the salmon farming industry exists, it is the num- ber one threat to migratory fish, such as wild salmon and sea trout. It’s in our power to stop this if we have the desire, so one goal is to bring salmon farming to an end.’

Another of the charity’s projects is Smart-Rivers, in which volunteers monitor their local rivers and collect industry-grade data that can highlight any stressors. This crucial scientific data provides WildFish with the evidence needed to take action. ‘Anyone can participate because we help teach members of the public how to become citizen scientists. Amplifying our collective voice is crucial in this day and age to get politicians to listen.’ MS

The lifeboat crew member

Despite living near the Thames, Claire Price had never considered volunteering for the RNLI until a school mum who helms at Teddington Lifeboat Station in Richmond, asked if she might be interested. ‘From the first time I came to the station, I was hooked by the combination of being able to give back to the community, do something different, learn new skills and be part of an amazing group of people,’ she explains.

She has been volunteering for more than four years, starting as shore crew before working her way through the lifeboat crew levels. ‘People think that you need to have a maritime background, but most of our crew don’t — we have architects, lawyers and IT consultants,’ says Price, a management consultant. ‘It’s also great to challenge the misconception that lifeboat crews are made up purely of men — about 15% of RNLI operational crew are female.’

Teddington is one of four lifeboat stations on the Thames and one of the first to cover a river; the service was started in 2002 after the tragic Marchioness collision in 1989. The crew trains together weekly to ensure they can deal with whatever might be thrown at them. ‘We never know what awaits us until we are briefed by the launch authority. If my pager goes off when I am on call, I have to stop what I am doing and run to the station. Our target is to have the boat in the water six minutes after the pager sounds.’

Rivers and inland waters can be as unpredictable as coastal ones and they pose many challenges, as proven by the number of fatal incidents during the May heatwave. ‘Although it’s warm outside, the water temperature can be as low as 12˚C, which leads to a danger of cold-water shock and drowning,’ Price warns.

‘Two recent shouts I’ve been on involved local residents who had their own boats and ended up in the water without life jackets. They were incredibly lucky to have been rescued by members of the public before we arrived. Hearing them talk about their experiences was really emotional and a stark reminder about the danger the river poses even to people who are very familiar with it, but it was also a great reminder of the community that exists on and around the water.’ MS

A thousand years ago, English rivers were fed by hundreds and hundreds of tiny streams that ran in a pattern like the veins on a spreading leaf. This natural drainage flowed slowly and carried little silt. Then, as farming developed, it demanded more extensive and speedier drainage. Ditches were dug, peatlands harvested and even the heavy clay soil of East Anglia made productive. Efficient water management drained the natural rivulets into manmade channels that fed directly into rivers. It was the basis of the Agricultural Revolution and few considered the long-term effects of drying the peat or carrying the top soil out to sea.

After the Second World War, artificial fertilisers and chemical inputs were unquestionably seen as the way ahead. Productivity soared, supported by public subsidy, and the chemical residues were carried away along these improved drainage systems, further polluting rivers and damaging biodiversity. At the same time, piped water was extended to almost every village and, with it, more and more homes were connected to the sewage system. Millions of houses were built or improved and businesses expanded — all of which expected to be supplied. Water had never been more available nor more convenient; it was cheap, in town and country alike, and people expected it to be cheap — after all, it fell free from the sky.

Alas, the system had not been planned. It had grown in an entirely haphazard way and, by the 1970s, the strain was becoming all too obvious, so the then Prime Minister, Edward Heath, pulled it together into a more logical structure of 10 regional water authorities. These new bodies inherited an aged, under-invested system funded by an outdated mechanism of water rates, which were largely unconnected with usage. Neither governments nor municipalities ever provided adequate investment because there were always more urgent demands for funds.

When Britain signed up to the European Community’s water regime, the awful truth had to be faced: we had the worst water standards in northern Europe. Beaches were filthy, sewage floated in the seas, hosepipe bans had become the norm and the fast-growing demand could not be met. Huge investment was required to make up for past failures, which is why Margaret Thatcher determined on privatisation as the only way to afford to do what was clearly necessary.

Looking back, it can be seen that neither public nor private ownership has been a success. At the heart of it is an unwillingness to pay the necessary price for water. Even after privatisation, successive governments used the regulators to keep the water bills down for electoral reasons. Companies were allowed to profit improperly and yet, at the same time, they were not allowed to undertake the necessary investment. The financial regulator, Ofwat, drove the system and the Environment Agency lacked the funds or the influence to play an effective role.

Now, following the extensive report by Sir Jonathan Cunliffe, which was highly critical of the lack of cohesion, the Government has put a new structure in place which seeks to correct the failures of privatisation without the huge cost and questionable value of a return to public ownership.

However, fundamental problems remain and are made more urgent by the changes in climate. Much of Britain’s water infrastructure is more than a century old and deteriorating fast. There is water in the North, but a real shortage in the South and East. The means of carrying water to the stressed areas are wholly inadequate and dependent upon canals and aqueducts built by the Victorians. The South of England is at the end of the water transfer system and, all the way down, water is taken by various regional undertakings, so that there is simply not enough left for Southern or South East Water. Of course, these poorly run businesses ought to have built reservoirs to conserve local rainfall, but, through a mixture of regulation failure, planning refusals and company neglect, they haven’t. Indeed, a new reservoir hasn’t been built in England for more than 30 years.

The Canal & River Trust (CRT) needs urgent investment to repair the ageing infrastructure bringing water from north to south. Dams, aqueducts and canals need upgrading if their failure is not to threaten whole communities and if they are to play their necessary role in flood prevention. Yet the Government is planning to reduce CRT’s budget. The cost of that cut may well be measured in lives, as well as in economic loss. It must not be allowed.

In the East of England, things are even more serious. Here, shortages are endemic. The Essex and Suffolk Water company has announced that it cannot provide water for any new or expanded business in its area until 2033. Yet, every year in winter, vast quantities of freshwater are pumped from the fields into the sea. Then, during summer, in this semi-arid region, farmers don’t have enough water for the irrigation upon which they depend. Urgent works to conserve this water supply are a priority for a Government that has properly recast the regulatory system, but still has no long-term integrated programme to address these issues.

Drier summers, wetter winters, more severe storms and torrential rain — this is today’s reality and we need a land-use policy to reflect it. Serious flooding is inevitable unless previous drainage methods are reversed, slowing the water flow by allowing more to be held in the land. Farmers should be enabled to plant trees and hedges appropriately and encouraged to dig and restore farm ponds. Farm reservoirs should become the norm and be part of agricultural permitted development, so they don’t require planning permission. New buildings should be designed to reduce wastage, save water and be drained in a sustainable way. White goods and water kit — from shower heads to taps — installed should meet higher water-saving standards. There must be no more paving over front gardens for car parking, but permeable surfaces instead, to allow the water to drain properly.

Our rivers need cleaning up. Water companies and agriculture have an equal role in this. For example, the cause of pollution in the Wye is a 50-50 split between sewage outflows and agriculture — the direct and indirect run-off from poultry farms is a major contributor. The food industry has a pivotal role in the clean up, but if we want clean rivers, farmers cannot be undercut by imported food produced without the environmental costs imposed on them here.

The reality is that there is no business as usual. Britain is not ready to cope with torrential rainfall or summer drought. Yet water is not only an essential for life, but a necessity for economic growth. The data centres that will drive the future economy use huge quantities of water. Food security depends on water for farmers. In much of the rest of the world, water is even more scarce than it is here and many producers we have relied on for imports will become too water-stressed to supply. In a world where already more than two billion people lack safe drinking water, climate change will exacerbate the problem.

Despite all that Britain has to do and the huge costs involved, we are truly fortunate. We can have the water we need, at a price we are able to afford, if only we have the determination to secure it.

Seventeen months after the River Ouse in Sussex notched up a historic first — becoming the first river in England to have its rights formally recognised by a local authority — other rivers now have charters in place to protect their integrity.

The dozen or so river charters drawn up since then include those for the Loddon, Medway, Dart, Itchen and Cam, plus the River Wye. Almost 50 local groups are now said to be exploring similar approaches in areas such as Northumberland (River Tyne), Somerset and Gloucestershire (River Avon), Cornwall (Helford River and River Fal) and Northern Ireland (Lough Neagh). ‘The charter itself didn’t grant the Ouse legal personhood. Farmers and landowners have not suddenly found themselves subject to new regulations, but it has changed the way rivers are discussed — not merely as resources to be managed, but as living systems that need to be cared for,’ said Cher Potter, a director of Emergence Trust, a charity supporting new thinking on Nature, culture and society.

A river’s charter — which draws on the old rural idea of stewardship, at the same time as putting emphasis on guardianship and long-term care and bringing more landowners into the conversation — is a set of shared principles intended to guide the many organisations whose decisions affect a river’s future. ‘The challenge now is turning those principles into practice,’ said Elena Blanco, associate professor of environmental law at Bristol Law School and a member of We Are Avon, a movement of river guardians working to regenerate the Avon catchment. ‘The argument is not that there are too few rules, but that responsibility is divided between councils, regulators, water companies and environmental bodies.’

The River Wye has become the movement’s ‘poster child’, with campaigners launching its declaration of rights at May’s Hay Festival in Powys. Last year, too, Herefordshire Council and the Wye Catchment Nutrient Management Board created a ‘Voice of the River Wye’ role and appointed ecologist Dr Louise Bodnar to represent the river’s interests in board decisions. ‘Now, instead of debating what is best for farmers, developers or local authorities, the starting point is what is best for the river itself,’ added Potter.

The raven has so many superlatives attached to its name that the bird is almost a creature apart. It is the largest member of the crow family worldwide. It is also among the heaviest songbirds on Earth. Of avian species in our hemisphere, it is the most widespread — from the icebound lands well within the Arctic Circle to 1,400ft below sea level at the Dead Sea.

Perhaps more than anything else, it is a bird more steeped in human story than most. With the chicken, dove and eagle, the raven is an archetype for our imaginations: to the indigenous peoples of America and Asia it was a kind of trickster god woven into their creation stories of the Sun, the Moon and of humanity itself. For all this exalted status between our ears, real-life ravens out in the British wilds have an altogether less certain place.

In the 19th century, the birds were reviled and persecuted until they had been exterminated in all but the mountains and upland moors of western Britain. No longer. From these old redoubts, the corvid with the pickaxe bill and deeply resonant ‘cronking’ call began a revival this century. Ravens have spread to lowland counties and a 2016 census suggested a national figure of 10,000 pairs, more than double the population in the 1990s and almost certainly now an underestimate.

The species had long survived on the rugged coastlines of Cornwall and Devon, but it made a steady advance through Sussex and Kent and into East Anglia. In all those areas, you can once more see them perform their extraordinary breeding displays, when an airborne bird rolls over momentarily on to its back to fly upside down.

Unthinkable in the 20th century is the appearance of ravens in London. When people mention ravens in the capital, we can no longer be sure that they mean the ceremonial bird that has long been on display at the Tower.

As I’ve claimed the bird as the ultimate source of story in Britain, I cannot omit a wonderful raven tale from Derbyshire. The species was extinguished in the 1850s and remained absent until the 1980s. Yet, when the birds returned to nest in the Peak District, they chose as their first site an old limestone crag that had always been known as Ravencliffe Cave.

Ravens had thus closed the circle and, more than 130 years after they had been lost, returned to a place named in their honour. With the raven’s remarkable recovery, how-ever, have come less welcome stories.

The bird has an intimate association with death and the old Welsh name cigfran means ‘butcher crow’. It denotes an ancient taste for carrion, although it is worth highlighting that ravens are omnivores. ‘From a worm to a whale’ is a famous summary of their diet. On occasions, this catholicity is known to include young lambs and even adult ewes and newborn calves.

Licences have been issued periodically to control ravens where the problem is intense, notably in Wales in 2015 and in Orkney the following year. The latter campaign, spread across several seasons, led to 124 ravens being killed. In 2025, nine different landowners on the islands sought to cull a further 30 birds. However, not all such planned operations gain approval.

A similar licence sought in Perthshire, partly to protect ground-nesting waders, including curlews and lapwings, from the perceived risks of ravens, was challenged and turned down.

The problem is that ravens aren’t a clear-cut threat to livestock. Studies in western Scotland, examining the impact of crows and ravens upon sheep, revealed that three-quarters of lamb carcasses taken by the birds were already dead or so weak at birth they were unlikely to survive. Even in an age of the species’ heavy persecution, Lt-Col Ryves, in his Bird Life in Cornwall (1948) suggested he had witnessed ravens feeding peacefully among sheep for decades and never seen a single attack.

What we do know is that issues can arise. Ravens can be problematic. The risks have increased with the recent resurrection in raven fortunes. Yet the bad old days of knee-jerk prejudice and systematic extermination will never return again.

This feature originally appeared in the July 8, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The Brits — and the Irish — have long enjoyed a love affair with cold-water and wild swimming (though we used to just call it ‘swimming’). Some of our greatest writers, including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Keats, drew inspiration from their time spent in the water; The King and Queen reportedly swim in the sea most days when they stay at the Rothschild Estate on the island of Corfu, Greece.

In recent years, the health benefits and glamour of wild swimming have been splashed all over social media. The downside? Lots of annoying people talking about it on Instagram. The upside? More and more of us are getting stuck in to campaigning for better quality bathing spots.

In our July 15 issue, which is themed around, drum roll please, water, we meet campaigners including an army veteran, a surfer, an RNLI volunteer and a diviner to talk about their relationship with our most precious asset. Elsewhere, the former chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben, argues that Britain really does have enough water — if only we can learn to use it responsibly.

In May of this year, DEFRA announced 13 new bathing sites across England — taking the total to more than 460 — including the first on the River Thames. Official classification means that the sites will be regularly tested by the Environment Agency throughout the ‘bathing season’.

It’s another small step in the right direction and so we’ve asked members of the Country Life team and contributors to reveal where they most like to swim in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Where? Trananaigh beach, Co Cork, Ireland

Who? Jonathan Self, Country Life contributor

Our nearest beach is Trananaigh, at the innermost end of Tralong Bay, a hidden, bottle-shaped cove much frequented by seals. It can be reached on foot by edging around various fields (one of which is home to a grumpy bull) or via a potholed road that leads nowhere else. It is overlooked by a grassy promontory, currently carpeted with thrift, sea campion, bird’s-foot trefoil and wild thyme.

Even in the middle of summer, it is generally empty. My late father believed that because West Cork is touched by the Gulf Stream the sea was warm enough to swim in all year round.

Personally, the thermometer has to reach 30℃ before I will even paddle. But if I am going to swim (if someone who struggles with the doggy paddle can ever be said to be swimming) there is nowhere else I would rather be.

Where? Somewhere in South Devon

Who? Rosie Paterson, Digital Content Director & Travel Editor

I cannot tell you where my favourite swim spot is — which, I admit, slightly defeats the point of this feature — because it involves blatant trespassing. However, I can hint at where it is and you can then take matters, and the chance that you might be told off, into your own hands.

It’s a natural pool, separated from the ocean by a concrete wall, erected, I believe, during the Second World War, and refreshed during big tides and bad weather. You can only reach it at low tide and by scrambling over some low but jagged rocks — and I only brave it when the ebbing water coincides with sunrise, when there are fewer people around.

The water, which is the colour of green sea glass, is milkier (you cannot see your toes) and calmer than the ocean — which you can hear crashing faintly in the distance. The need to swim in silence so as not to be discovered means it's a wonderfully peaceful experience.

Where? Duxford Ford, Oxfordshire

Who? Bella Fulford, Editorial Assistant

In the west Oxfordshire countryside, just outside Duxford, there is a bridleway that crosses the River Thames. I never intended for the deeper side of it to become a wild swimming spot, but, when my dog was a puppy with what seemed like a death wish, it had to become one.

I retrieved her from the water more times than I can count. One time, fully-clothed, in chest-high water, I realised I was standing at the beginning of a ritual I hadn’t realised I needed. From then on, I returned — willingly — in the summer months, every year.

Where? John’s Water, Blickling, Norfolk

Who? Flora Watkins, Country Life contributor

Follow a meandering lane along the valley of the River Bure and you will eventually reach a solitary mill cottage by a twin-arched bridge. A mill-race tumbles through one of the arches into a wide, dark pool, the water embroidered by vivid-green water buttercups and reeds. It could be a painting by Seago and it is known as John’s Water, though no one is sure why.

The fine gravel bed is shallow at first; my daughter paddles here, watching the fish as, with a gasp — even on the hottest of days — I push off the shelf into the glassy mill-pond.

As my sons and their friends dare each other to jump from the bridge, I roll onto my back and float like Millais’ Ophelia, weaving her weedy garlands.

Where? Builth Wells’ ‘hell hole’, Powys, Wales

Who? Tiffany Daneff, Gardens Editor

We've spent many days at 'hell hole' just outside Builth Wells — a patch in the River Wye where the water forms a pool deep enough to jump in from the rocks above. It’s far too scary for me ever to attempt that seven-foot leap, but everyone else loves it. I just swim up and down the river, which widens below the pool and is hidden from the nearby road and any signs of human habitation.

There are smooth rocks for lying on when it's hot and for picnicking whatever the weather. You reach it by parking in a layby and clambering over a style that someone has helpfully coated in barbed wire — there may even be a notice that says ‘Private’ — and then it's an easy five-minute walk down to the water.

Where? Grantchester Meadows, Cambridge

Who? Lotte Brundle, Digital Writer

As a student, many happy summer days were spent in Grantchester Meadows in Cambridge. Lounging around on the banks of the River Cam, snacking on picnic food and chatting foolishly about our dreams of an adulthood that didn't yet exist. Taking a leisurely dip in the river to cool off was always the best part. They were some of the happiest days of my life.

Two friends even got married there and had their wedding reception in the Orchard Tea Garden, a short walk further down the river. I can't visit the city now without recalling cycling full pelt down the path to the river with a sunburnt back, my swimming costume on under a summer's dress and a clunking tote bag of refreshments, racing my friends to the cool water.

Where? Loch Striven, Argyll and Bute, Scotland

Who? Jo Rodgers, Country Life contributor

I was staying on the Cowal Peninsula along the west coast of Scotland recently, and had a week of numbing, endorphin-fired swims in Loch Striven. It’s an extraordinarily pretty sea loch, surrounded by evergreens and the snow-capped Cowal Hills on three sides.

The banks are rocky and I'd forgotten swim shoes, so I'd go in wearing a wetsuit and doubled-up hiking socks. Somehow this part of the southern Highlands is still overlooked by most travellers. There was nobody to see me squelching back to land.

Where? Frensham Great Pond, Surrey

Who? Katie Ruocco, Account Director

I began swimming at Frensham Great Pond in that first strange summer of lockdown, entering the water at dawn while mist still hovered over the surface and the heath felt wonderfully still.

Long after restrictions eased, I kept going. It’s less about the cold-water thrill now and more about the ritual of it. I like the unhurried wade from the sandy edge into the cool, the tea-coloured water, and breathing in the pine and heather as I go.

In summer, dragonflies skim past, and herons rise from the reeds; in winter, the grebes and coots are reliable companions.

For a while, it’s just sky, water and peace. I arrive home pink-cheeked and clear-headed — and a little pleased with myself before breakfast.

Where? The Mediterranean

Who? Flo Allen, Social Media Editor

I am so sorry, but I prefer to stick to heated swimming pools and The Med.

Where? Brighton Beach, East Sussex

Who? Will Hosie, Lifestyle Editor

My favourite spot to go wild swimming is in Brighton: just there on the beach, right by the pier. Maybe it's because I'm a closeted exhibitionist, but I've rarely enjoyed myself so much as when I went to Brighton for my birthday two years ago in November, and stripped to my trunks running into the freezing water while onlookers looked at me petrified, ignoring the gulls swooping in on their chips.

I like wild swimming in November because it's already so cold outside that getting into icy water is less of an ordeal than getting into mildly warmer water in summer, when the outdoor temperature is in the high 20s. I can handle the cold; it's the contrast that proves an issue.

Where? Llanelltyd river pool, Gwynedd, Wales

Who? Pamela Goodman, Country Life contributor

Under the stone arches of Old Llanelltyd Bridge, just outside Dolgellau in the southern reaches of Eryri National Park (aka Snowdonia), is a large and languid river pool — a truly scenic spot in the River Mawdacch before it widens into the glorious (and synonymous) estuary on its slow trundle to the sea at Barmouth.

Don’t let the nearby A470 put you off — the road means easy access.

A grassy field nudges a pebbly beach, ideal for families and picnickers, and the pool itself is gentle, deep and suitably chilly. The ruins of Cistercian Cymer Abbey are right there, too, after which a five-minute drive will have you at Penmaenpool for a pie and a pint at the picturesque George III inn.

Where? Dawlish Warren, Devon

Who? Paula Minchin, Managing & Features Editor

Dawlish Warren — a 1.5-mile-long stretch of white sand — is a sweeping, unspoilt and usually blissfully quiet spot on the south coast of Devon, where it's possible to wade out into the waves without the need for swimming shoes.

It also has plenty of handy wooden groynes, which are especially useful for leaving phones, clothes and a towel on, so you can easily get warm and dry after a dip in the surf, without having to drag on the soggy garments that you've left safely on the edge of the sand dunes, only to find they've been soaked by the incoming tide.

Cold-water and wild swimming can be dangerous. Visit the Governmentand Royal Life Saving Society websites for more information.

If the Unloved Birds’ Club has an apex predator in its midst, then it is surely this giant of a beast. The white-tailed eagle is our largest raptor and among the biggest of all British birds. Everything about it is impressive: the huge talons, the deep hook-tipped beak, the loud, almost goose-like hacking call, but, above all, the square-ended 8ft wingspan.

Equally noteworthy in a separate sphere is its glorious flexibility as a predator. It will catch and devour animals ranging in size from lemmings or small chicks to large wildfowl. It will rob other raptors of their kills. It will — we should note — tackle the seven biggest species on the unloved bird-list, including herring and great black-backed gull, cormorant and greylag goose. For this predation alone we should perhaps learn to love it.

Yet, white-tailed eagles are not too regal to enjoy carrion, from whales and reindeer to strandline fish. Ironically, it is those clean-up operations of dead animals that have caused the species more trouble than any other part of its lifestyle. The birds were once found from the English South Coast to the outer Scottish isles, but were driven inexorably to the margins of Britain by an unofficial coalition of shepherds, landowners and keepers. The issue propelling that long history of persecution was an old charge against the eagle as a killer of livestock.

By 1918, the last ever individual was eliminated and eagles were absent as breeding birds until a reintroduction campaign was initiated on the inner Hebridean island of Rum in 1975. The organisers could never perhaps have imagined how successful their eagle project would become. Today, the breeding total is put at about 150 pairs, most of them concentrated in the Western Isles, with strongholds on Lewis, Skye and Mull, but a new initiative launched on the Isle of Wight in 2019 has restored the species to the South Coast.

These patient works may have brought back a magnificent eagle, but they have also resurrected the accusations against them as killers of sheep. Several members of Parliament have called for an eagle cull. A bird released on the Isle of Wight was poisoned by rodenticides at a Dorset site in 2019 and last summer saw a highly publicised charge by a Hebridean farmer that eagles may have taken five foals from his herd of Shetland ponies.

Few would deny that a predator so flexible in matters of diet will readily take a free meal. It is when its status as a consumer of dead animals crosses a line to make it a killer of live, healthy stock that the problems arise. However, let’s first consider the case of the mysteriously disappearing Shetland foals.

Environmentalists argued that it is nigh-on impossible for an eagle to perform such a feat: the ponies weigh two to five times as much as the bird. No matter how broad those barn-door wings, an eagle could never fly off with prey weighing up to 37lb.

Searches around nests of the nearest breeding eagles corroborated this first-principle physics: no pony remains were ever found. Yet the story garnered widespread media coverage founded purely on supposition. Like almost all of the Unloved Birds’ Club controversies, it is not a bird problem: it is a human problem. Entrenched positions on both sides make it so difficult to achieve any kind of compromise.

Let’s try a little thought experiment. A solution could be found if eagles were allowed to reach their full carrying capacity in the British Isles. Then, if a ‘rogue’ bird were proven to take livestock (such as lambs and piglets), we could act, if necessary, even eliminating that individual. The eagle population would be secure and the farmer could sleep at night.

Environmentalists would probably be horrified by such proposals, but no more than their opponents by a vision of eagle numbers climbing to their full breeding extent in Britain. At present, we should note that our 150 pairs represent only a fraction more than 1% of the European total. Thus both parties continue arguing, entrenched and siloed, with no agreement in sight. Given the slow, steady rise in eagle numbers in Britain, the disagreements over them will continue. Perhaps all we can say is, watch this space.

This feature originally appeared in the June 17, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

For those fond of wearing cut-off denim shorts with Wellington boots, the end of June in England means one of two things. Either you are heading to Glastonbury with 140,000 other revellers, or you are on your way to Groundswell, the regenerative farming festival in Hertfordshire, now dubbed — with only mild irony — the Glasto of farming.

This year is a fallow summer for Glastonbury. Groundswell, meanwhile, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. From a modest gathering of 450 farmers discussing no-till agriculture in a shed, Groundswell has grown to a world-famous convening of the agri-ecologically curious. Among last year’s 10,500 visitors were government officials, corporate sustainability teams and The Prince of Wales, all treated to artisanal food pop ups, wellbeing workshops and live music alongside discussions on hedgerow management and soil health. Its wide ranging appeal means a number of Glastonbury attendees can also be found dancing here, not least Andy Cato, co-founder of farm-to-plate food business Wildfarmed and one half of Groove Armada, who DJs at both festivals, sometimes just 24 hours apart.

Slickly produced and Instagram ready, this blurring of genres shows how far the farming festival has travelled from its country-show roots. But when tickets are snapped up by punters and corporations who wouldn’t know a plough share from a power harrow, does this risk driving away the very people they are supposed to be for?

The agricultural show is one of Britain’s oldest social happenings, proliferating in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as a mechanism for disseminating new farming techniques, science and practice. Its foundational assumption was that the farmer was the focus. While 39% of visitors to the Royal Welsh Show have no connection with agriculture, no one is in any doubt whose world they were in, and who the show is for.

That world has contracted. When the first Royal Show took place in 1839, agriculture was the largest single employer in Britain. By the time it held its last outing in 2009 after 170 years, with breaks only for war and foot-and-mouth, visitors, which once included Elizabeth II and the Prime Minister, had dropped from a quarter of a million to 120,000. It closed not because farming had lost its audience, but because the farming community had become too small to make the economics workable.

In choosing to launch the inaugural ‘Great British Farm Fest’ on the same site in Warwickshire’s Stoneleigh Park this May, Jeremy Clarkson was making a point. Farming is back, but this time — as their website declared — it is ‘rock and roll farming’. Some 52,000 spectators came over three days. Whereas visitors to The Royal Show applauded rosette-winning farmers for specimen cattle and champion sheep, leading some to call it ‘the FA Cup for livestock’, Farm Fest offered tractors pulling apart a car, lookalike competitions for TV farm-star Kaleb Cooper and an orchestra playing music on vegetables drilled and chiselled into edible penny whistles.

But perhaps this is exactly the point: if a bridge needs building between an urban population disconnected from the land and those who grow their food, watching a white-coated judge praise the defined rump of a British Blue is unlikely to do it. Celebrity chefs cooking demonstrations and the chance to feed goats sticking their heads through a wooden windmill might.

What is not in doubt is that farming could use all the PR it can get. Average farm income across all types fell by almost 50% in in 2023/4. Cereal farms were hit hardest, with a 73% drop. There have been six Secretary of States at DEFRA in as many years. In the last year alone, the Government abolished the Sustainable Farming Incentive payment scheme without warning, reintroduced it with a cap, and announced inheritance tax changes so inflammatory that scenes of tractors blocking Parliament Square in protest have become commonplace. The boom in farming festivals in this context feels less entertainment and more a call to arms. The message for moral support appears to be getting through where pleas for financial support have failed. One in 10 people in the UK now visit a farming show each year. In 2023, record attendances were driven largely by non-farmers. But while aerial displays and Shetland Pony Races may be crowd pleasers, can these modern kinds of farming festivals keep sufficient space for their original purpose?

‘We have always said Groundswell is for farmers, by farmers’ says Alex Cherry, event director and son of co-founder Paul. Even so, fewer than half of last years’ Groundswell attendees were farm owners. This year the festival is offering a discounted farmer ticket in recognition of the sector’s financial challenges and Cherry is clear the programming is always conceived ‘thinking about the farmer in the room — we don’t want it to be dumbed down’. Sessions have, however, been diversified, ranging across fibre and flower growing, and policy and supply chain discussions to one of the most popular panels last year: the challenge of maintaining a marriage while running a family farm.

Cherry’s theory as to why the festival appeals to audiences outside agriculture has less to do with boujee burger offerings, and more about the underlying themes. Most of his London friendship group once thought him mad to return to the land. ‘Now they ring me up wanting to get out of the city, to get their hands dirty’ Cherry says. ‘This way of farming offers meaning in a world that can feel disconnected and dystopian.’ In both its aesthetic and its ethos, it is easy to see how Groundswell appeals to a disillusioned millennial hot-desker from Hackney.

How does Cherry respond to those who feel the proliferation of urbanites and corporates has changed the festivals’ character? ‘I now don’t worry about it’ Cherry says. ‘We do very little sponsorship — we have six festival partners, some of whom pay nothing. Our funding relies on ticket sales and exhibitors’ revenue. We are totally independent’. He is aware of the warning offered by the music festival world, where the majority of the 600 festivals taking place each year are now owned by a handful of mega-companies: ‘As soon as a festival comes into ownership run by someone in the events industry, it loses its soul.'

An example of one farming festival which has done exactly this is the Oxford Real Farming Conference. Begun as a fringe protest of 50 people in conscious opposition to the Oxford Farming Conference — the established, industry-aligned annual gathering held in the same town on the same dates — it has grown to a global gathering of nearly 5,000 with a range of ecologically minded discussions interspersed by music, book readings, film screenings, speed dating and morning meditation sessions.

However, despite government and business making sharp pivots towards sustainable farming in the last few years, it will not share its platform with the organisations it was set up to oppose. Some find this obstinacy reassuring. Others find it limiting. But the festivals’ identity and purpose remains clear, to both those who attend and those who don’t.

This sharing of a collective cause is the magic ingredient that seems to keep farmers at the centre of a festival, maintaining the balance between education and entertainment. Rachel Hall of Gutchpool Farm in Dorset, who attended the first Groundswell, says she comes back each year because ‘there are always interesting people to find and listen to’. This crosses not just ages but nationalities. This year Hall is attending a Groundswell reunion with fellow nominees for a Top 50 Farmer in Europe Award, representing 26 countries.

Cato has become an unlikely barometer of where the farming and music festival worlds intersect. He is clear about the difference between a festival for farmers and one about farming. The first is essentially a work event; the second a social one. Even so, the view from the Groundswell DJ booth is, says Cato, ‘pretty wild — farmers definitely know how to party’. As someone who has played to audiences of tens of thousands, he’s in the position to judge. But there is, thinks Cato, something special about his Groundswell set which comes down to a shared purpose: everyone has spent the day discussing how to better steward land and knows what is at stake. Dancing together seems to seal this mission: it is, says Cato, ‘a lovely moment of unity’.

In Groundswell’s wake, others are now swimming. From Cumbria to Jersey, there are now more regenerative farming festivals than months in the year. Most are squarely aimed at farmers. Others, such as ARK Summit on Steve Winwood’s Gloucestershire farm, are also stepping into the middle ground with policy debates alongside breathwork sessions, a pilgrimage walk and lunch cooked over open fire by Bushcamp Wilderness Cooking.

Philip Larkin, watching the Bellingham Show in 1973, saw in its annual gathering as something more than livestock and produce competitions: a whole community briefly visible to itself, before dispersing back into the countryside it had come from. This summer may bring more curious Glastonbury revellers than ever to Groundswell’s fields. As long as the farmers in the tent still feel the purpose is to learn and share as well as celebrate and showcase, farming festivals will continue to thrive in their modern interpretation of the agricultural show.

If they do, their farmer fan base will continue to agree with the final line of Larkin’s Show Saturday. ‘Let it always be there’.

A male common pheasant in full breeding regalia is arguably one of the most colourful sights in all of British birdlife. When two cocks spar in spring, facing up to one another in prolonged tail-twisting jousts, they are nothing less than spectacular. It’s not only their weird, fleshy crimson goggles, imperial purple ear-horns and emerald gourgets, but their exquisite repeat rows of elliptical black tips to all the orange-cinnamon breast feathers and the longitudinal black-and-buff margins to their neck and shoulder plumes.

Male pheasants appear exotic and, in some senses, they are out of place amid the subdued tones of our woodlands. Both parts of the bird’s scientific name, Phasianus colchicus, refer to its true origins, which stretched right across Asia from China to the Caucasus. Yet Europeans acquired their first captive stock at the western edge of the bird’s range, in an area on the eastern shores of the Black Sea with the ancient name of Colchis.

Medieval aristocrats were entranced by the bird’s Asiatic beauty, although few could have anticipated the pheasant’s gradual triumph over the sporting imagination, to the point where it had a central place in shaping the very lands of Europe. The bird was repeatedly introduced and acquired self-sustaining populations from Norway to Bulgaria. It was also taken around the world to North America, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. In this country, records of pheasants may go back to Roman times, but certainly date from the Norman period.

Now, it is indubitably the gamebird of choice. Its exalted place has been much enlarged since the late 20th century, partly because of the parallel population declines of our other native sporting birds — red and black grouse and grey partridge. For all the pheasant’s long heritage in these islands, it remains a non-native species, classiied by officialdom on Category C, together with other aliens, such as parakeets and mandarin ducks.

There is also a kind of unofficial sniffiness among birdwatchers. Twitchers almost scrupulously ignore pheasant behaviour and the birds barely feature as a subject for study. Those attitudes were humorously captured by one wag, who once saw a pheasant being washed briefly into the sea as it stood on a rocky Scottish shoreline. ‘This is probably the only known case,’ he wrote, ‘of a pheasant doing something interesting.’

In some ways, he could not have been more wrong. Like the duelling cock birds evoked in my opening scenario, there are now two opposed pheasant camps jousting with one another. At issue is the birds’ present-day abundance. Hand-reared poults, bred in pens, fed from grain hoppers and released in the summer in time for the start of the shooting season in the autumn have become the largest single species’ contribution to our entire avian biomass.

Even placing a figure on the numbers now being liberated has itself become part of the heated pheasant debate. Estimates range between 25 and 60 million, depending on the claimant’s position, however, an authority accepted by most sides has proposed that in 2019, 47 million were released.

Pheasants are largely vegetarian, yet switch to a mixed diet in spring and summer. The exact proportion of animal matter may fluctuate, but not the charge that large numbers of released pheasants are having major local effects on invertebrate populations.

A study in Belgium looking at the impact of pheasant releases upon reptiles — slow worms, lizards and snakes — has been taken as proof that they are having disproportionate and adverse effects on overall biodiversity. The pro-pheasant lobby is reluctant to go so far and prefers to stress the positives in terms of employment and economic stimulus to our rural places.

Another side issue is the grisly matter of road-kill. A minimum estimate for mortality on our roads is 2.8 million pheasants. One consequence is the food bounty that the squashed carcasses provide for foxes. Opponents of pheasants argue that it is the shooting community — ironically, those least sympathetic to old Reynard — that is providing the biggest boost to fox numbers. These animals are then driving fox predation of other beleaguered ground-nesting birds, such as curlews and lapwings.

Soar point: Phasianus colchicus is a sporting bird that continues to polarise opinionErnie Janes/naturepl.com Aristocrats were entranced by the bird’s Asiatic beauty

This feature originally appeared in the June 10, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

What we think of when we picture luxury travel has changed over the years. Now it’s less private jets and piña coladas and more yoga retreats and home-made kombucha. We are, it seems, looking for meaningful experiences that enrich our lives instead of flashy status-symbols. As usual, throughout this process, people have been reminded that nature is priceless — particularly when it comes to the British countryside.

Although scrambling through the hedgerow in search of rosehips may not instantly scream ‘five star getaway’, foraging courses are now on the docket for many a luxury hotel guest in the UK.

At Bovey Castle, set amongst Dartmoor National Park in Devon, navelwort and nettle beer are on the menu just as much as caviar and Champagne are. It is just one of the Pride of Britain (PoB) Hotels — a curated collection of British hotels is annually reviewed — that are putting on foraging days.

‘A lot of people come to the hotel and they'll look at the view, but they won't actually explore the grounds. When you go out into these grounds today, you'll think: “Why are people not exploring this?” It's heaven down there, it's fantastic,’ says Thomas Radford, who is leading our foraging walk.

On the allure of foraging he adds: ‘I think people like to be guided and feel safe and, as opposed to just another boring drudge around the woods, it is something that brings it to life.’ In this country foraging is legal, as long as it’s not done on private land (for this you must have specific permission).

If we look back 300 years, knowledge about the plants you could and couldn’t eat was absolutely essential to survival. Some women possessed such a startling botanical arsenal that they were accused of witchcraft — something which many of them paid for with their lives. Sadly, with the rise of farming, when we started domesticating crops, and more recently supermarkets, this communal knowledge has since been mostly lost, with the exception of a few individuals.

As he leads us on a two hour walk around the grounds of Bovey Castle, a Grade II-listed early 20th-century mansion, Thomas points out the various plants we can gather and tells us about some of their uses. Elderflower is in season at the moment, and can be used to make cordial, flavoured gin or even elderflower wine. ‘But best use plastic bottles, as it does have a propensity to explode,’ Thomas says, detailing a particularly gory incident when a friend of his used glass bottles which, when one exploded, took his eye out.

Wild garlic is another useful ingredient in the foragers pantry, as is pink purslane, mint, navelwort, Jack-by-the-hedge and cleavers (otherwise known, amusingly, as ‘sticky willy’ — they make a brilliant diuretic that tastes of cucumber when left to soak in water overnight, apparently). Nettles, as long as they are pulled out with a glove to avoid stinging, make excellent nettle soup or beer.

The main thing that puts people off foraging, says Thomas, are ‘lookalikes’. Mushrooms are a prime example. We all, I’m sure, love the idea of cheffing up some self-foraged chanterelles on toast for supper as much as the next person, but many of us remember all too well reading a news story detailing someone’s death after accidentally eating a poisonous mushroom.

When it comes to lookalikes, Thomas never tastes the risk. As he puts it: ‘If you're going to die for something, don’t let it be salad.’ In Dartmoor, hemlock is the most common dangerous plant and can easily be confused with the totally benign cow parsley. Well known as the poison that killed Socrates, the innocuously-delicate white flowers of the plant bloom in clusters by bodies of water. If ingested, the alkaloids in the plant slowly poison the nerve-muscle junctions and cause the failure of the breathing muscles. Thomas aptly, but awfully, describes this as ‘a meat coffin that lasts hours’. We see plenty of it on our walk and I make sure to keep a healthy distance.

Despite the less than appetising description above, the trip did stoke my appetite for foraging. As long as you steer clear of those deadly lookalikes, it’s a healthy and interesting way to reconnect with nature and snaffle up some free grub while you’re at it. Plus the two-hour walk made sure I was ravenous for anything (but hemlock) once we were back in the hotel restaurant.

Booking for The Wild Larder: A Foraging Walk & Lunch with Thomas Radford is open now. Upcoming sessions at PoB Hotels include Thurlestone Hotel, Devon, on June 26 and Calcot & Spa, the Cotswolds, on June 30.

The Prince of Wales is to join an eminent line-up of royal Guest Editors when he takes charge of the November 11 issue of Country Life to celebrate his love of the countryside, as well as his desire to protect and enhance the environment.

In taking the reins of this special souvenir edition, Prince William is following in the footsteps of his father, The King, who has twice guest edited the magazine, on the occasion of his 65th birthday in November 2013 and his 70th in 2018. In 2020, his aunt, The Princess Royal, masterminded the July 29 issue. The Queen — when The Duchess of Cornwall — was the next to take her turn in the editorial chair when overseeing the July 13, 2022 issue, which became the biggest-selling edition of all time.

Last year, Sir David Beckham oversaw the popular October 22 issue.

The Prince of Wales’s edition will reflect His Royal Highness’s advocacy for improving access to mental-health services in the countryside, together with his most cherished view, his favourite recipe, his favourite painting and his selection of notable rural champions.

‘I’m thrilled that The Prince of Wales has agreed to edit a very special issue of Country Life,’ says Editor-in-Chief Mark Hedges. ‘Having met with him last week to discuss his plans for his edition, I was struck by what a passionate countryman he is and how much he cares about the welfare of those who manage it.'

'I believe that his views, concerns and hopes for its future will resonate deeply with our readers and I am excited to see how his energy and commitment to changing lives will be reflected in his specially curated issue.’

As the old joke goes, how do you know if someone’s into cold-water swimming? Answer: they’ll tell you. These days, more and more of these people move among us. ‘Oh I simply can’t start my day without a dip,’ they cry, before listing multiple ailments that have mysteriously been improved by their new habit of flinging themselves into the nearest river or pond like a Labrador.

One dubious website extolling cold-water swimming’s virtues lists as many as 50 benefits. These include, but are not limited to: it boosts the immune system, increases one’s metabolism, promotes better sleep, helps the libido (how, exactly?), improves balance and memory, apparently, ‘because the anti-inflammatory effect… is beneficial in those experiencing dementia or other memory deficits.’ None of these are medically proven, I’d like to add.

I remain unconvinced by cold-water swimming. Even the phrase is silly. Performative. What’s wrong with simply ‘swimming’? It’s not as if you’re going to be ‘hot water’ swimming in your local river, is it? The kind of swimming I like is on a hot day, with a cool (ish) swimming pool nearby, along with a sunbed and a plentiful supply of dry towels. I’m not that interested in slipping into a body of water that’s murky, potentially hiding creatures, and which may make you ill.

‘It’s lovely once you’re in!’ comes the smug cry from someone who stripped off and waded straight in. Meanwhile, you stand there shivering on the bank, extremely unwilling to peel off your coat and even less willing to stick a body part, any body part, into the brown water that will — supposedly — leave you feeling so perky.

The last time I managed it was in Guernsey, where cold-water swimming is very popular. Little wonder, they have sensationally pretty beaches and coves which are, on the face of it, much more inviting than, say, a grubby canal.

And yet a mere toe in the water felt enough for frostbite. ‘Come on, it’s gorgeous!’ friends shouted from the sea where they were, naturally, already bobbing about like seals. I managed almost a minute in the water and then scurried out again. Sure, I felt a vague warm glow once I’d pulled my clothes back on again, but I can get the same sort of wellbeing from a glass of wine in the bath.

If you find yourself staying with friends who insist on this tiresome practice, you could either claim you’ve forgotten your swimmers (although in my experience those who are keen on this pastime are gung-ho sorts who won’t brook this kind of excuse). You could feign a heart condition, or a recent chest infection. Or, if you don’t want to feel a stick-in-the-mud, you could join in — but very briefly.

‘Is there a dryrobe I could borrow?’ you can ask, to make it sound as if you know what you’re talking about when it comes to the clobber.

Arrive at said location and strip off quickly, as if to denote enthusiasm. The quicker you get in, the quicker you can get out again. Try not to take half an hour to get in. That only prolongs the torture. Jump, if you can. A short sharp shock to the nether regions, but at least then you’re submerged. Splash around a bit, exclaim how lovely is it, make sure everyone sees you, and then you can claim cramp and hop out again. Bravo. Now go and have a hot shower.

As England begins its World Cup campaign tonight, aiming to end 60 years of hurt, I am once again wondering what makes a great football team? It’s an interesting question. You naturally need players and individuals bursting with talent, but more than that it’s necessary to work together on the pitch, with resilience, trust and coordination. Easier said than done, especially for this England team in recent years.

One place that England could look to for inspiration might be wildlife itself, which takes great pride in, well, resilience, coordination and trust. What then could football learn from nature? It seemed like a good question and one that our friends at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) were more than happy to answer. They identified six lessons from the world’s most iconic species that Thomas Tuchel and The Lads could use to bring it home. Here’s hoping they’re reading this.

The high press: African Wild dogs

No team can succeed by sitting back and letting the other team just play, so a high press is important. African Wild dogs, although sadly endangered, are the benchmark for an intense press. Reaching speeds of 44mph, they work as a pack, chasing prey together, with each dog taking its turn at the front to keep the pressure on.

Defensive shape: Emperor penguins

A good attack will win you games, but a great defence will win you championships, so the saying goes. Staying organised and in a coherent shape is the essence of a strong back four, although for emperor penguins, that might resemble a ‘back thousand’. When temperatures in the Antarctic drop, they form a close huddle, conserving heat and shielding themselves from the wind. Each penguin takes a turn on the outside of the huddle, before rotating back inside.

Coordination: Chimpanzee

Teamwork isn’t just moving together as one, but also communicating clearly and effectively, anticipating things and telling your teammates what’s going to happen before it happens. In the wild, chimpanzees are some of the most intelligent animals around, signalling to other members of their group and using vocal calls during hunts to help catch prey.

Set pieces: Humpback whales

Arsenal basically used them to win this year’s Premier League, so we’ll just have to accept that the set piece is as important to winning football games as it has ever been, even if it rendered the whole sport basically unwatchable. In the wild, fine proponents of the set piece could be humpback whales, which work together to herd fish with spirals of bubbles before surging upward to feed. Known as ‘bubble-net feeding’, the technique shows what a well-drilled move can achieve. I also reckon a humpback whale could make a pretty handy goalkeeper.

Patient build up: Marine turtles

You can’t attack all the time in football, and with temperatures in the USA, Mexico and Canada forecasted to be 30º or higher, conserving energy is key. Step forward our marine turtles, who cross entire oceans through steady, purposeful movement. They are capable of high speed when necessary, but their movement is typically defined by endurance and efficiency.

The exception: Cheetahs

Every team needs a star. Who will it be for England: Bukayo Saka, Harry Kane, Morgan Rogers, Jude Bellingham or someone else? Sometimes, to win the big games, you need individual moments of brilliance. The cheetah is a solo hunter, the fastest land animal, and its unique agility and speed that gives it success.

Kemi Badenoch said it was ‘a silly thing to do’, Nigel Farage termed it ‘crackers’ and the RSPCA demanded incredulously to know where the ‘pigeons, rats and gulls’ were, but at least one person was pleased about our new banknotes featuring illustrations of native British wildlife. When asked about Winston Churchill’s face potentially being replaced by a badger, his granddaughter Emma Soames proclaimed ‘lucky badger!’ Well said.

Cash may no longer be king, but who or what appears on the front of our notes has been a topic of hot contention among the British public recently. The change will mark a shakeup from the illustrations of famous faces, such as William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, that have been on our £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes since 1970. The one human to remain will be Charles III — maybe cash really is king, after all.

At Country Life, we think this no bad thing. What better to celebrate than our native wildlife, which adds so much value to our countryside, beaches and even cities. The public have until July 3 to make up their minds so, without further ado, here are the Country Life team’s bids for the creatures they want creeping onto our cash.

Bottlenose dolphin

My friends had posters of boy bands on their walls; I had posters of dolphins. Specifically, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) — which is one of the largest dolphin species, growing up to four metres long. I remember thinking that a dolphin — an animal we, or at least I, typically associate with far-flung places and warm waters — couldn't possibly inhabit the UK because it was oh so exotic. In fact, they thrive in places such as the Moray Firth in Scotland, Cardigan Bay inWales, and off the coasts of Cornwall and Yorkshire.

In adulthood, I've had the privilege of seeing and even diving with bottlenose dolphins and other dolphin species. Like dogs and horses, they possess magical, therapeutic abilities. Sadly, I've never seen one in the UK — despite years of trying. The biggest threats they face in our waters are entanglement in fishing gear, chemical pollution and heavy boat traffic, but surely the beaming smiles they bring to the faces of everyone who come across them makes them worthy of all the good PR they can get.

— Rosie Paterson, Digital Content Director & Travel Editor

Brown hare

Nothing, simply nothing compares to the brown hare (Lepus europaeus). Associated with the moon, springtime and witchcraft — how else could our ancestors explain its magical qualities? — the hare is the big dude of small mammals. It doesn’t need to hide from predators, it’s too cool for that, but blitzes them with a burst of speed that nothing else can match while throwing in moves that Houdini could only dream of. Blessed with runway looks and more mythology than Merlin, the hare is freedom. It’s the true spirit of the land.

— Mark Hedges, Editor in Chief

European hedgehog

What’s more British than a European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)? Spiky and standoffish on the outside, but completely charming once you get past its prickly exterior. Not only are they cute (a good enough reason on its own to appear on our money, in my opinion) but they also handily gobble up a whole load of gardeners’ pests, such as beetles, caterpillars and slugs, to boot. Sadly, the European Hedgehog is now Red Listed in Great Britain, meaning it's at risk of local extinction. So, let's not only get this brilliant creature on our banknotes, but back in our gardens too. My personal choice of model for our future cash would be my favourite hedgehog of all time, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

— Lotte Brundle, Digital Writer

Grey seal

Long before I knew there were seal species native to Britain, or understood quite how important grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) are to our marine ecosystems, I simply thought they were the most adorable creatures I'd ever laid eyes on. So much so, in fact, that I once pinched a small seal toy from the Natural History Museum on a Year 1 school trip — a letter of apology swiftly followed, of course, but nothing was going to come between me and that seal. Britain is home to around 40% of the world's grey seals, making us internationally important custodians of the species. Highly intelligent and curious, they have been observed learning from one another and displaying distinct personalities. I'd support a return to cash if it meant being greeted by those whiskered faces every time I opened my purse.

— Florence Allen, Social Media Editor

Atlantic puffin

It was on the Isle of Lunga that the first puffin shot past my ear, with a beak full of sand eels, its wings fizzing like a badly hit golf ball. There were thousands of them, marching in and out of their nests, staring out to sea, flying back and forth endlessly. They are so small, yet so richly coloured and expressive, you could be forgiven for thinking you could sit down and chat to one.

I had wanted to see a puffin for years. The flora and fauna of the UK is rich and varied, but you could not call it colourful — apart from Fratercula arctica. These essential and fearless seabirds are as close as we get to exotic, and for want of a better word, they are absolutely adorable. They are, as all good things tend to be these days, at risk, as their habitats and food sources strain under the pressure of a changing climate and overfishing. What better way to remind ourselves of their plight and their brilliance than by putting them on the very thing that is likely leading to their doom: money.

— James Fisher, Digital Commissioning Editor

Barn owl

Barn owls (Tyto alba) are the supermodels of the strigine world. Their long legs, white undersides and beige plumage — unchanging throughout the year — mean they are the envy of other owls; and, indeed, of birds more generally. They swoop and glide with a heart-shaped face that could melt even the coldest of souls while being one of the only nocturnal creatures shortlisted for our bank notes. Since nightlife accounts for £112 billion of the economy (more than sport), I think we ought to show some respect. The barn owl can be the disc jockey's representative on polymer.

— Will Hosie, Lifestyle Editor

Basking shark

Hedgehogs? Baby seals? Please, we're not selling schmaltzy postcards here: this is an opportunity to do something different with our banknotes. Something surprising. Something, well, cool. And as everyone knows, sharks are nothing if not cool.

They're also — rather surprisingly — British. The waters off our island are home to dozens of different types of shark, all of which have incredible tales to tell, from the mako shark, which can swim at 45mph, to the Greenland shark, which can live to be 400 years old. So, rather than taking the obvious Beatrix Potter-inspired route of fluffy and cute, let's go with a creature that is less-celebrated, but just as wonderful.

The basking shark (cetorhinus maximus) is the second largest fish in the ocean, a plankton-eating gentle giant, and a British success story: the marine-protected area created for them off Orkney has helped stabilise a creature that had been hunted almost to extinction.

— Toby Keel, Digital Director

Buff-tailed bumblebee

The lazy, baritone buzz of a bumblebee is the merry little voice of an English summer garden. The buff-tailed variety (Bombus terrestris) is a commendable early riser — among the very first bumblebees to emerge from hibernation (sometimes as early as February). He’s an unassuming, portly little gentleman, going about his important business of being a super pollinator without fuss (buff-tails are famously docile and mild-mannered). He’s also the UK’s largest bumblebee. Most importantly, he’s a cheerful little fellow, exceptionally tough in cold weather, and highly adaptable, happy to nest in a variety of unusual locations, from rodent burrows to compost heaps. As William Blake noted, ‘the busy bee has no time for sorrow’.

— Agnes Stamp, Associate Features Editor

The pine marten, red fox, common kingfisher, Eurasian curlew, great spotted woodpecker, white-tailed eagle, Atlantic salmon, common frog, emperor dragonfly and marsh fritillary butterfly are also contenders. To have your say on which native animal should appear on our banknotes cast your vote here before 11.59pm on July 3, 2026.

Almost every year, the largest crowd in Britain can reliably be found at Glastonbury. Some 210,000 revellers cram into a site spanning 1,100 acres and let loose to the sound of music until the cows come home. Not this year. Worthy Farm, which hosts the festival, is taking a backseat. The cows are home and need no summoning.

It seems fitting, therefore, that some of the largest crowds of 2026 should gather around a tribute to farm life. The Royal Welsh Show in Powys expects to welcome up to 65,000 people a day (July 20–23) and the Royal Bath & West, which took place in Somerset on the last week of May, registered just under half of Glastonbury’s total capacity in only three days.

County shows are frequented by seven million people each year. There are as many as 156 across the country, and they have been held, in one form or another, since the 18th century. Beginning as informal gatherings for local folk eager to trade savoir-faire across craft and farming, they later morphed into a premial and educational showcase of country living, held on permanent showgrounds since the 1960s. Perhaps surprisingly, they are growing more popular. What by urbanite maxims could have spelt their eventual decline has, instead, proven a boon. Championing the very traditions held in contempt by vegans and agrofuturists has allowed the county show to appeal, ironically, to city dwellers — many of them young parents with small children, who now make up the shows’ primary attendees.

Those seeking a connection to the land that feeds them are beginning to realise what has long been obvious to the farmer: that agriculture is a conduit to culture itself. Sheep shearing, livestock parades and Shetland pony racing all offer a glimpse into our agrarian heritage. ‘The young ones,’ wrote Philip Larkin in 1973’s Show Saturday, ‘thunder their ponies in competition/Twice round the ring.’ Businesses are catching on. The Newt in Somerset is hosting its very own Summer Farm Show, on July 4–5. ‘The farm is intrinsic to who we are,’ says Charles Freeman, head of sales. The show is included in membership and members can bring up to six guests on day tickets, at £35 each. ‘We are transforming the paddock,’ Charles explains, ‘into a space for demonstrations of traditional farming methods, welly wanging, and a dog and duck show.’

Besides its educational purposes, it is also somewhere for people to let their hair down. Michael Eavis, founder of Glastonbury, now sponsors the Bath & West’s Pilton Tent: a music marquee which show director Rupert Uloth tells me was full to the brim on both Friday and Saturday nights.

This feature originally appeared in the June 10, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Some may be shocked even to find starlings among the Unloved Birds’ Club, given their striking appearance: they are among our most beautiful garden birds. The dark plumage is copiously speckled with hundreds of white or gingery arrowhead spots, set off by a deep iridescent gloss that means the whole bird shines purple or emerald depending on the sunlight.

More recently, starlings have come to be recognised for a beauty that surpasses even these surface aesthetics. When flocks come to roost at dusk, they create protean shapes across the evening sky, murmurations that are championed as one of the great events in all of Britain’s natural world. What, exactly, can the species have done to earn our displeasure?

Ironically, it is those night-time gatherings that are the source for a less positive attitude. If starling roosts persist for weeks, they can leave large quantities of guano, sometimes toxic enough to kill the roost trees and underlying vegetation. These products once gave rise to a set of old dialect names for starlings, including ‘shitlegs’, ‘stinker’ and ‘scootie’ (Scots dialect for bird poo).

If eight million birds roost above your city home each night, as they did in Rome earlier this century, what they leave on your cars and pavements and gardens can make the matter feel personal. It was for exactly these reasons that, until recently, many British city councils broadcast the alarm calls of peregrines or other raptors to deter starling roosts. Flocks of the birds once gathered nightly in London and were enjoyed by commuters for bringing a sense of something wild and beautiful to the heart of the metropolis. On one occasion, however, the unthinkable happened, when so many birds landed together on the hands of Big Ben’s tower that this quintessence of all things British slowed temporarily, causing the clock to lose 4½ minutes.

Another aspect of starlings can arouse offence. They are essentially grassland inhabitants, which moved into urban or suburban settings when their numbers expanded with the intensification of agriculture in the 19th century. The birds adapted beautifully to town life, nesting in our roof eaves and finding food in the streets or on rubbish dumps, but also increasingly on garden bird tables.

Starlings in feeding mode are intense and their dagger-like bill can create a charge of aggression. I recall my parents’ distaste for the birds as they mobbed the fat balls. They were simply too successful, accused of out-competing all the others. Even worse are the occasions that they raid the feeding trays full of grain and cow-cake for stalled herds in the farmyard. A farmer friend complains bitterly of the cost of this form of starling larceny.

If anything could redeem the bird, it’s the remarkable voice. The song is an intense, free-form medley, full of jumbled whistling, wheezy, clucking and popping sounds. Into this starling stream of consciousness come perfect mimetic fragments of owl, buzzard and curlew calls. The range of these vocal borrowings is astonishing and includes horses, goats, cats, dogs, foxes, frogs, even captive gibbons. Most impressive is its ability to reproduce anthropic sounds, including the human voice; a Roman emperor apparently had a pet bird that could recite Greek and Latin.

The full spectrum of its borrowings from urban life makes the starling one of the great modernist composers. Items recorded include the alarms from reversing buses, the electronic bloop of car locks, the beeps at pedestrian crossings and phone ringtones of all kinds, not to mention workmen’s wolf whistles.

Through all this mimicry there are clear signs of their authors’ mischievousness, as well as their deep intelligence, but one starling motif that I heard of recently should surely bring a smile to the lips even of their worst critics. It was the reproduced music of children all laughing as they played together on a trampoline.

This feature originally appeared in the June 10, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

It’s a sight that gladdens the heart at this time of year: hand-painted signs dotted around the country declaring that the local village fete is shortly to take place.

‘The village fete!’ you may think warmly. ‘How lovely!’ You imagine the sun shining, a tombola, perhaps a coconut shy, children laughing and, perhaps, even a rude vegetable competition. It’s a quaint and comforting image of England. There will be tea and cake and warm Pimms; there will be jars of homemade preserves and giant marrows. There will be lots and lots of dogs.

Fetes aren’t supposed to be grand. The more homespun the better. In parts of the Cotswolds now, you may come across very grand fetes indeed. No sticky jars of dubious chutney in Burford, thank you very much. But the lack of sophistication is part of the charm. When so much is so carefully manicured for social media, these days, here is an event where the less perfection the better. The bunting is tangled and faded; the PA system crackles and then gives up; the tombola prizes include several tins of peaches in syrup that went out of date during the war. The first one.

On the day itself, it will rain, but spirits will not be dampened. Locals will determinedly erect gazebos in the drizzle and remark every few minutes that it’s set to brighten up after lunch. Reader: it will not brighten up after lunch.

No matter. The show will go on. Competitive events will vary from village to village. Some will feature a tug of war. Wellie wanging, Splat the Rat, ferret racing, ‘Guess the marrow weight?’, ‘Guess the number of sweets in a jar’, and sponge throwing may also feature. These will be taken immensely seriously, and with an astonishing level of competitiveness when one considers that the prize is probably one of those sticky jars of chutney. Last year, I went to a fete in Sussex where there was a ‘naturally misshapen vegetable’ competition and first prize was awarded to a suggestive carrot. ‘Very amusing!’ the judges had scribbled on their judging card. Second prize went to an enormous squash that had warped like a French horn. ‘What a whopper!’ said that judging card. Magnificent.

There will probably be a dog competition, too. Again, categories will vary from village to village. Waggiest tail is likely; best six legs is now disapproved of by some in these body positive days, but you can still find it in certain villages — those which remain blissfully unaware that judging the lady vicar’s legs could be a cancelling offence.

You’ll probably be able to get a slightly charred sausage if you’re peckish, or an ice cream, or buy something that looks vaguely as if it might have been sat on from the cake stall.

At one juncture of the afternoon (the rain still coming down), someone will announce on the crackly tannoy that a lost child is safely in the first aid tent. Or a lost dog. But nobody will panic very much because nothing could possibly go wrong at a fete.

Splendid, wasn’t it? Same time again, next year.

Since humans began farming, birds have proved the gravest threat to crops of all kinds, both during sowing and at harvest time. ‘In autumn they cause great damage in the vineyard,’ noted the 14th-century German scholar Konrad von Megenberg; the subjects of his complaint were starlings.

Throughout the ages, solutions of varying effectiveness have been proposed. The Roman poet Virgil bemoaned the damage done by geese and recommended bird snaring even on festive days; late-13th-century Italian writer Pietro de’ Crescenzi advised protecting ripening grapes through the use of a tower-like contraption in the centre of the space with cords to connect it to all parts of the vineyard, manned by a young boy pulling the strings.

The most lasting and culturally significant method of crop protection is, of course, the scarecrow: a clothed, sometimes hatted, straw-filled guy on a wooden framework, intended to resemble the farmer or a farmworker to frighten away any birds. A relic of our pre-industrial past, it has long since been practically replaced by more efficient and effective methods; yet, in cultural terms, it endures.

From Austria to Brazil, Egypt to Japan, this rickety guardian of the field has been quirkily ubiquitous. Scarecrows are mentioned by the Andalusian writer Abu’l-Khayr in the 11th-century Book of Agriculture and, in Measure for Measure, Shakespeare writes: ‘We must not make a scarecrow of the law,/Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,/And let it keep one shape, till custom make it/Their perch and not their terror.’ Here, the scarecrow serves as a metaphor, a readily comprehensible image: the device reveals not only that scarecrows were widespread by this date, but that they were also not hugely effective.

The precursor to the scarecrow was a boy, who would hurtle about a field flailing his arms and shouting ‘shoy hoy’ in an attempt to scare away the birds (this may have informed the archaic alternative name ‘shewel’). The 16th-century English poet and farmer Thomas Tusser went a step further, suggesting stone throwing or arrow shooting, too, and advised readers: ‘No sooner a sowing, but out by and by,/With mother or boy that Alarum can cry:/And let them be armed with sling or with bowe,/To skare away piggen, the rooke and the crowe.’ Although some sources suggest the Ancient Egyptians set up scarecrows in the fertile farmland along the banks of the Nile, in Britain, it is thought that the scarecrow came about as a result of the Black Death: with labour in short supply, farmers could no longer spare someone dedicated to scaring away birds and so turned to distinctive, sometimes eerie dummies.

In succeeding centuries, the scarecrow became commonplace across rural England and was exported far beyond. Region by region, his name varied as much as the individual figures’ appearance: in Somerset he was called ‘mommet’, in Devon ‘murmet’, in Yorkshire and Lancashire he was a ‘mammet’ and in Berkshire a ‘hodmedod’. There were, of course, scarecrows on the grain-growing prairies of the USA: who could forget the one with the head ‘full of stuffin’ who capered along the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz? By the time the film was released in 1939, however, scarecrows’ days were soon to be numbered: an increasingly mechanised agricultural sector after the Second World War had far less use for them.

Yet, that wasn’t the end of the story. In 1935, The Children’s Hour on BBC radio introduced young listeners to cantankerous scarecrow Worzel Gummidge. He proved so popular that he would go on to appear in children’s books by Barbara Euphan Todd and several television series from 1953. A later one would star Doctor Who’s Jon Pertwee (in 1980, he sang a pop hit in character) and contributed to suggestions of scarecrows’ unsettling, otherworldly qualities. The series was shot in an almost psychedelic light, with Worzel himself sporting an alarming array of heads, including a mangelwurzel, turnip and a swede. Worzel and his wife, Aunt Sally, with her feverishly rouged cheeks, enjoyed success across the globe, giving rise to Worzel Gummidge Down Under, filmed in New Zealand.

Scarecrows have taken on different characters worldwide. Ting mong in Cambodia, armed with wooden rifles and spears and clad in old helmets, are in fact effigies meant to protect households from spirits that might bring illness into the home; they gained popularity during the Covid pandemic. Those of Poland are no less intimidating: the term for scarecrow, strach na wróble, carries the alternative meaning of ‘bogeyman’.

In parts of Japan, the scarecrow has long been cast in a more spiritual role, revered as a sacred guardian of the field and honoured accordingly with small gifts. Indeed, in the Shinto religion, Kuebiko, a god of wisdom and agriculture, is depicted as a scarecrow. Today, in the near-deserted village of Nagoro on the island of Shikoku, artist Tsukimi Ayano — called the ‘Scarecrow Mother’ — has populated the once bustling streets with 200 kakashi. Japan is rapidly urbanising, with one of the largest ageing populations in the world: as young people move away to cities and elderly residents die, thousands of villages are left to crumble ignominiously, leaving nothing but empty houses and derelict infrastructure. Thanks to Ayano, in Nagoro the scarecrow has become more than a bundle of rags crudely arranged to resemble a person: it stands now as a symbol of the difficulties faced by rural communities.

Perhaps things haven’t changed so much after all, and these haunting figures are once again spiritual guardians of the landscape and their communities.

This feature originally appeared in the June 3, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

The image of the fly-fisherman waiting to tempt a trout is among the most British clichés one can find. Robin — let’s call him Robin — wears waders, wellies and a cap, with a flannel shirt he hides under a gilet when the temperature drops below 15°C. When Gen Z discovered Guinness seven years ago and found they could cosplay as their grandfathers, they took a leaf out of Robin’s wardrobe and donned a Barbour to the pub. They did not, however, take up fly-fishing; though this may be changing.

For £85 per annum, budding fishermen have been quietly joining City Flickers since the group was founded in 2020. The project grants access to subsidised angling around the world, as well as introductory classes and parties for the hook-minded. Membership now stands at 350. ‘It’s been a steady trickle,’ says co-founder Lucy Mantle, ‘although Britain’s move from rod fishing licences to a paperless system in 2023 certainly lent a hand.’ The main draw for young people is proximity to Nature. ‘Unlike here, where it’s often seen as an inaccessible hobby due to the cost of fishing permits,’ Lucy says, ‘the sport has no such connotations in Australia or the US, where young people take it up because it connects them to the natural world.’

Since social media tends to dissolve these cultural boundaries, young fishermen in Britain are now more likely to resemble Brad Pitt’s Paul Maclean than our very own Robin. ‘It’s seen as cool,’ one tells me. Ned Varley, a jurisprudence student hoping to become a sports solicitor, is one of the young bucks whose love of fly-fishing nearly saw him go down the riverine path. ‘It’s quite a different thing to go fly-fishing for pleasure than it is to make it your life’s work,’ he cautions. Ned first fell in love with the sport in Yorkshire, with his grandfather as a mentor. ‘People have this false impression of fishing as a sedentary activity,’ he says, ‘when in fact it’s a long, scenic walk with the hope of catching some fish along the way.’

After attending Sweetwater Guide School in Montana, US, Ned did a stint as an assistant at Kau Tapen, one of the luxury lodges on the Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. ‘I accidentally spooked some of the fish when I was going out to familiarise myself with the 80-odd fishing sites I had to know off by heart,’ he laughs. As with most Gen Z-related news, not all people are thrilled. ‘The last thing I want is a young man intruding on my time in the river,’ says one of the Robins.

This feature originally appeared in the June 3, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

To celebrate World Ocean Day on June 8, and inspired by a delightfully silly TikTok trend, I've been considering an important question: which marine animals look most like man's best friend?

I strongly recommend taking all comparisons with a pinch of sea salt.

Seal = Staffordshire bull terrier

There's something undeniably Staffie-esque about a seal. The big soulful eyes. The smooth, silky appearance. The compact, muscular build. Even the expression is similar — a mixture of optimism and the vague hope that somebody nearby might have snacks.

Great white shark = English bull terrier

With their smooth egg-shaped heads, tiny triangular eyes and prominent noses, the resemblance to a great white shark is surprisingly strong. The crucial difference, of course, is that one is a famously affectionate clown of the dog world and the other is a three-tonne apex predator.

I'd happily come face-to-face with an English bull terrier every day of the week. A great white shark, rather less so.

Swordfish = borzoi

The longest snoots in their respective worlds.

The borzoi's famously elongated head has become the subject of countless internet memes, but the breed was originally developed by Russian aristocrats to hunt wolves. The swordfish, meanwhile, can reach speeds of more than 95km/h thanks in part to its streamlined shape.

Dolphin = Labrador retriever

Both seem permanently delighted to see you. Both are intelligent, sociable and eager to interact with the world around them. Labradors consistently rank among Britain's most popular dogs and dolphins are one of the few marine animals known to play simply for fun.

I think they'd make great friends.

Walrus = French bulldog

A comparison based largely on what experts might describe as 'squishy faces'.

The walrus's magnificent wrinkles, impressive whiskers and permanently unimpressed expression feel remarkably French bulldog-like. Both also have a tendency to look simultaneously grumpy and charming.

Elephant seal = bloodhound

It's all about the nose.

The male elephant seal's inflatable proboscis can reach nearly 2m in length and produces the extraordinary roaring noises used to impress rivals. The bloodhound's nose is equally impressive in its own way, possessing around 300 million scent receptors — among the highest of any dog breed.

Pufferfish = Pomeranian

Small? Yes.

Round? Also yes.

Capable of dramatically increasing in size when feeling threatened? Absolutely.

The pufferfish inflates with water; the Pomeranian simply inflates with confidence. Both somehow manage to occupy far more space than their physical dimensions would suggest.

Beluga whale = Samoyed

The resemblance between a beluga whale and a Samoyed isn't so much about appearance as it is about vibe. Both are bright white, endlessly friendly-looking and appear to spend their lives smiling. Belugas are often described as the most expressive of all whales, thanks to their flexible facial features, while Samoyeds are famous for the trademark 'Sammy smile' that gives them their perpetually cheerful appearance.

Manatee = basset hound

With their substantial frames, gentle nature and wonderfully unhurried approach to life, manatees and basset hounds feel remarkably alike. Both have a certain soft-edged charm, complete with droopy expressions, ample rolls (always a compliment) and a tendency to look as though they've just woken from an exceptionally good nap with neither appearing to be in any particular rush to get anywhere.

Dumbo octopus = Boston terrier

Both have enormous expressive eyes, compact bodies and an uncanny ability to look like animated characters brought to life. The dumbo octopus, named after the elephant-like fins protruding from either side of its head, may be one of the cutest creatures in the ocean. The Boston terrier is certainly one of the cutest dogs.

Whether you're a dog person, an ocean enthusiast or simply someone who enjoys comparing animals that have no business being compared, here's to celebrating the remarkable creatures that make both our oceans and our lives infinitely more interesting.

Mention the words ‘street pigeon’ and most would probably summon images of those lovely chest-pouting citizens found in every urban park, with their metallic green-and-purple neck patches, strutting the pavements and adding a touch of the natural world to the busiest metropolis. There is, however, a second, less-loved version of the same animal. It is the unwelcome interloper that breeds under bridges, inside derelict factories or on the girders above public structures — bus and train stations are favourites— and which hangs around litter bins for ketchup-soaked tidbits.

Many of those pigeons have dull grey plumages that seem the very essence of urban grime. Everywhere they gather to breed or roost is further splattered, sometimes heaped, with copious quantities of white, stone-corroding, acidic guano. Even worse, the bird occasionally decides to leave its calling card directly upon us. The cost to councils for deterrent measures against feral pigeons — the endless rows of vicious metal spikes along window ledges and sometimes the deployment of captive hawks by specialist handlers — is probably the largest public expense devoted to thwarting any avian pest in Britain.

Yet, however much we might dislike the birds, infamously described as ‘winged rats’, there is a moral bind we must consider before judging them. If feral pigeons have become a nuisance, then we made them so. The species is so ingrained in our notion of urban life that we easily overlook its extraordinary cultural history and its anomalous ecology.

It is, in one sense, an entirely wild bird. Its ancestors originated with a coastal or cliff-dwelling species that we now refer to by a separate name, the rock dove. However, this and the feral pigeon are genetically one and the same creature, Columba livia. What separates the two is a prolonged history of interference by us. Pure rock doves still exist, keeping to themselves on remote coastal cliffs. Yet, in places such as Fife, there are examples of what are locally called ‘doo cots’: stone structures that were erected to lure rock doves into our control. The practice is thousands of years old and is still pursued in the Middle East. The birds transferred their nests into the dovecote and the owners had access to a triple harvest: the eggs, the young sweet-fleshed squabs and the guano, which was once a valuable fertiliser. It is rich in nitrates and was used for making gunpowder.

There is double irony in that practice, because we long ago recruited the species as a symbol of peace, then pressed it into service to wage our wars. The wild feral pigeons you find in every town are descendants of those formerly domesticated birds. There are yet further sources from when we adopted the Belgian sport of racing pigeons in the 19th century. These extraordinary navigators are famous for finding their way to pigeon lofts from hundreds of miles away. Sometimes, however, they can get lost and those strays are recruits for the urban ‘pest’ population. Homing pigeons were used by medieval Arabs as a key means of state communication across thousands of miles. Pigeon post sounds archaic and inefficient, but it continued into the era of radar navigation.

Occasionally, the exploits of these birds have been passed to posterity. Ponder, for example, a female bird called White Vision. She ditched into the Atlantic off the Hebrides on the night of October 11, 1943, when the crew of a flying boat crashed. Their coordinates were scribbled onto a message, then wrapped around White Vision’s leg. She flew against a force six head-wind until she reached her loft. The handlers found her message, resumed the search and saved 11 crew who had spent 18 hours in the water. For her bravery, White Vision received the equivalent of the Victoria Cross, the Dickin Medal.

Next time you’re in the park being pestered by a pigeon that wants to share your sandwich, reflect that it might be a descendant of the heroic White Vision. What you do know is that the bird at your feet is there because humans once wanted to make use of its ancestors.

This feature originally appeared in the June 3, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Flowers from the Farm, the UK trade body that represents more than 1,000 small-scale cut flower and foliage growers, has been awarded dedicated Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes — the economic identifiers that allow a sector to be formally recognised in the eyes of government, funders and policymakers.

The move comes just in time for British Flowers Week (June 15–21) and is particularly pertinent during the UN International Year of the Woman Farmer, as eight out of 10 members of Flowers from the Farm are women.

The award was secured following pressure on the Treasury for recognition for a sector worth £33.6 million a year by Sarah Dyke MP, Liberal Democrat Rural Affairs Spokesperson, who commented: ‘Securing dedicated SIC codes means that [flower growers’] contributions can finally be measured, supported and championed. These are businesses that not only create jobs and drive local growth, but also enhance biodiversity and support more sustainable land use.’

Flowers from the Farm recently exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Georgie Newbery, the chair of Flowers from the Farm, said: 'Getting this SIC code means that not only can we prove how much flower growers are putting into the British economy but that we're in a position to be acknowledged and encouraged by government, because we finally exist.

'The most important thing is that we can now look at the biodiversity net gain protocol, which will give us protection. The SIC code also allows us to lobby for more, and if we can lobby for more, then it will be much, much clearer for consumers that the flowers that they are buying are British-grown.'

In theory, this will result in fresher, longer-lasting flowers for consumers, making eco-friendly choices more viable and a greater variety of flowers available. Because of this, services like LORE, by The Real Flower Company, a new monthly subscription that deals in cut flowers, will benefit massively from these changes.

This feature originally appeared in the June 3, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The sounds of birds are everywhere at present.

Wherever you go — in a city park, in woods, in fields and on open moorland or simply when you’re lying awake as the light breaks in the morning, trying not to think about everything that is wrong with the world — the birds are singing.

This choral polyphony is at its richest and loudest — and most expansive — at dawn. The dawn chorus has no geographical boundaries in the northern hemisphere, except the oceans. This song wraps right around the terrestrial world; taking a single rough latitudinal line, it unfolds in sequence in Russia — on Sakhalin Island, in Novosibirsk and Moscow — then Minsk (Belarus), Hamburg (Germany) and on to Manchester in the UK as the sun rises. Billions of birds are tuning in, uniting our planet in their music.

Yet there are some anomalies we should tease out. We call it the ‘dawn chorus’, but it does not truly begin as the sun appears. Many species, notably skylarks, grasshopper, sedge and reed warblers, as well as cuckoos, will sing through the night. Others, including robin, blackbird and song thrush, tune in long before sunrise. They begin at this hour partly because song is a double-edged business: it announces, but also betrays the songster’s location — by singing in semi-light, a bird lowers the risks of predation.

Then there is the matter of it being a ‘chorus’. This suggests that the birds pre-plan their contributions. However, the idea may contain more substance than we imagine. The great American sound recordist and ecologist Bernie Krause proposed that, over millennia, each vocalising organism has learnt to share the communal sonic space by adjusting the pitch and timbre of their solo performance to this wider ‘songosphere’. Each, therefore, occupies a slightly separate sound niche deliberately, so as not to interfere with others.

The notion of a ‘chorus’ as a harmonious enterprise also cuts across a central purpose of birdsong. In singing, the individual — usually a male — is proclaiming both its breeding territory and its status as a potential mate. It is a kind of turf war, but expressed through music. One wonders, at this time of international conflict, whether our own species couldn’t learn a thing or two from birds.

The dawn chorus is just about passing its peak, so it is the perfect moment to tune in ourselves (try the Merlin app), before it fades. It isn’t really necessary to know one bird from another — the soft fruity notes of blackbirds from the bell-like tinkling of song thrushes.

It is enough to realise that in hearing it, one is encountering one of the most beautiful fixtures in all Nature and the greatest musical performance on Earth

What are the ingredients of a thriving market town? A decent butcher and deli, a pub or two and bonus marks for a bookshop — but the real jackpot is surely a good independent wine merchant. As supermarkets deploy convenience and discounts to great effect and ever-expanding Majestic combines scale with specialism, it’s easy to be lulled into regarding your local wine shop as an anachronism reserved for claret-related emergencies. Yet the reality is more likely to be a champion of artisan producers, a free-thinking guide through classic regions or more off-piste terrain and a dynamic business that is deeply woven into its community ecosystem.

‘The important word is independent,’ declares Philip Amps, the fourth generation of his family to run Amps Wine Merchants in the Northamptonshire town of Oundle. ‘What you get with independents is a little bit of panache, that stardust, because they work with small growers who are perhaps only producing 3,000–4,000 bottles.’

It’s a scale that lends itself to originality, rarity and passion projects from families that prefer to spend their time among the vines rather than completing supermarket compliance forms. Unlike the store manager of a large chain, notes Philip, ‘our specialism is that we only sell wines we like’. In fact, the company’s unofficial motto is: ‘If you don’t like it, bring it back because we’ll drink it!’ It’s a manifesto echoed by Tom Ashworth, CEO of Yapp Brothers, which was founded after a long lunch in 1969 when his stepfather, Robin Yapp, enthusiastically ordered a pallet of wine to his garage in Mere, Wiltshire.

Now based a few miles down the road in Sparkford, Somerset, and directly representing about 100 producers, Yapp remains true to its original ethos, which doubtless still includes the odd good lunch. ‘What we’re about is best-in-class wines from family producers,’ explains Tom, noting that in many cases this relationship is now on its third generation of vigneron. Such precious continuity cultivates an affectionate thread between producer, retailer and customer that is a world away from the price-driven loyalty on which larger corporations rely.

Although UK cities boast their fair share of excellent independent wine shops, more rural locations tend to engender a slightly different mindset. ‘Our producers are small farmers from communities not unlike the one we trade in,’ remarks Gareth Groves, managing director of Stone, Vine & Sun in Hampshire’s fly-fishing Mecca of Stockbridge. That resonance is amplified by his freedom to offer ‘a range that meets local rather than national tastes’. As many independents do, Stone, Vine & Sun has embraced online sales and serves customers across the UK, but relishes an opportunity to deliver more personal service in the shop. This is also the perfect environment in which to show off local heroes, such as Exton Park Vineyard, Black Chalk, Northbrook Vineyard and — just over the Wiltshire border — Domaine Hugo.

Then there are all the events, which not only represent such an important element of a country wine merchant’s business model, but also embed it within the wider community. Weddings are only the start, suggests James Tanner, managing director of Tanners, whose forebears founded this Shropshire-based wine merchant in 1872. Today, in addition to its original Shrewsbury flagship, the firm has five shops dotted either side of the border along the Welsh Marches. He flags Tanners as a regular supplier of ‘hunt balls and point-to-point bars, where you need someone who can manage delivery into the middle of fields’. Venturing back through the post-party quagmire to collect empty bottles is all part of the service.

Back on firmer ground are the regular talks and tastings, as well as more intimate tutored events with visiting producers, all hosted at Tanners’ historic headquarters, where the cellars also provide a handy customer storage service. In addition to advising clients on how best to fill their own cellar, augmented by popular en primeur offers (in which a wine is bought before it has been bottled) and a ‘Wine In Time’ two-monthly or quarterly mixed-case subscription service, Tanners will also buy back mature bottles from country houses in need of a declutter. ‘They’re often a really good source of old Bordeaux,’ reports James, who recently reclaimed a collection of 1970 Port, safe in the knowledge that these bottles had been gently maturing in the same place since his father originally delivered them.

If Tanners epitomises the traditional wine merchant, The Somerset Wine Company shows a different side to the independent scene. When Camilla Wood set up her Castle Cary business in 2014, she ‘saw a gap in the market for a younger style, a more vibrant wine shop’. In particular, Camilla felt well placed to engage with fellow female wine lovers. ‘Women have a lot of interest in wine, great noses and great palates, but they tend to hide behind their — dare I say it — more pompous wine-buying husband,’ she smiles. ‘We say: “Come in, have a chat, share the troubles of the day, get some really good advice.”’ Although her team all have wine qualifications, this expertise comes packaged with the ability to be ‘great people connectors’.

The wine itself is a perfect tool to make that connection. ‘Wine is a very joyful product; it can be life-enhancing. I just love that alchemy.’ Beyond its own Castle Cary neighbourhood, The Somerset Wine Company taps into the significant footfall offered by nearby Teals Farm Shop, which has established itself as a superior stop-off on the A303 artery to the West Country. ‘The raison d’être of Teals is organic and sustainable, so we reflect that with our wine curation there,’ explains Camilla. She has also forged connections with other local businesses, including Paul Nicholls Racing, whose team and owners require a healthy supply of Champagne magnums.

One challenge that independent wine merchants share is the perception that they should be kept for special occasions. These smaller players may lack the economies of scale and loss leader tactics that allow supermarkets to offer their cheapest deals; nonetheless, you don’t have to shop far north of a tenner with an independent specialist to find similar, indeed often superior value. Walk into any wine shop and the manager will be able to rattle off the cumulative effect of duty, VAT, packaging and logistics costs on every bottle before you factor in the quality of the liquid itself. It is a shame, however, that the additional post-Brexit administrative burden tends to fall disproportionately on smaller importers, not least because they focus on all those interesting wines that tend to be produced in modest quantities.

More happily, it’s testament to the sourcing skills of a company such as Amps that it still manages to offer about 20 wines priced at less than £10. If you can nudge your spend up towards £15, however, you’ll hit today’s real independent sweet spot, enthuses Amps' Philip: ‘That’s when you get really interesting wine that is exciting and worth drinking.’ Over at Yapp, Tom agrees. ‘I think you should be able to find really drinkable wine at under £15 a bottle,’ he observes, drawing a parallel with shopping at a butcher. ‘If you want sustainable, good-quality meat, you will pay £15 for a good chicken.’ Extend this same notion of value to the contents of your glass and there’s yet another good reason to push open the door of your friendly local wine merchant.

This feature first appeared in the May 27, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Forty years ago, Charlie Burrell, 10th Baronet of Knepp, inherited his family pile in West Sussex: 3,500 acres on the edge of the rolling South Downs, encompassing arable fields, dairy herds, a manor house and a country park supposedly designed by Humphry Repton.

Fresh out of agricultural college, Charlie was excited about his farming future,but soon enough, the reality of running a farm on marginal land in a rural backwater of England hit hard. After decades of overgrazing, the estate’s soils were degraded, its habitats ravaged, its biodiversity as parlous as its finances. For the next 13 years, Charlie eked out a precarious living from the existing arable fields and dairy herds, but his land just got worse. Soil health declined. Wildlife disappeared. Biodiversity cratered.

In 1995, despondent and fearing for their future, Charlie and his wife, the writer and conservationist Isabella Tree, stumbled across the work of a little-known Dutch ecologist called Frans Vera who proposed a radical idea. What if, instead of fighting the land, lacing it with soil conditioners and chemical fertilisers in an attempt to restore what’s been lost, you simply left it to Mother Nature to do the work? Was it possible, Charlie wondered, to farm in a wilder way?

Twenty-six years later, Knepp has become a paragon for the rewilding movement. Since 2000, the land has recovered with astonishing vigour. Biodiversity has increased by 900%. Native shrubs and wildflowers carpet the once-barren clay soil. Rare species including turtle doves, nightingales, emperor butterflies, barbastelle bats and beavers have returned. And for the first time in six centuries, white storks are nesting at Knepp again. This transformation formed the basis for Wilding, Isabella Tree’s bestselling 2018 memoir. And now, a quarter of a century after embarking on their environmental experiment, the next generation are moving into the rewilding business.

Ned Burrell has always known he would inherit Knepp one day. Along with his sister Nancy (now a biologist at Oxford University) he grew up on the estate, watching the rewilding experiment play out as the landscape morphed around him.

‘My dad thinks in 50-year cycles,’ he says. ‘Ever since I was little, I remember going with him to projects all over Europe, looking at beavers and bison and all that. I’ve just grown up with it. We often joke that Knepp is a bit of a cult. Once you're in, you can't escape.’

Now 29, Ned is the Director of Wilding Kitchen, Knepp’s award-winning restaurant, which received its first Green Michelin star for sustainability in 2026. It forms part of a cluster of food businesses, including the market garden and butchery, which sells the estate’s own wild-reared meat. Having trained as a chef at Ballymalloe Cookery School, followed by stints at restaurants including Brat, Kol, the Smoking Goat and St John’s, Ned is fired up about food, farming, and the way our agricultural system works — or, in his opinion, doesn’t.

‘There's often an argument that Knepp is pitted against food production,’ he says. ‘But actually, our experience shows how rewilding can sit alongside farming. Farming is the biggest leader in biodiversity loss in Europe. It’s where a lot of the environmental damage is done. Part of our work here is about opening up discussions around how we create a more resilient, sustainable food system. I’m passionate about it.’

Ned’s partner, Lia Brazier, joined the Knepp cult a decade ago. An illustrator and designer from Zimbabwe, she is now Knepp’s creative director, overseeing branding, retail, interiors and product design. ‘Ned’s been on this journey since he was a boy,’ she says, ‘but I’m a newbie. We got together 10 years ago, and as soon as I came here, I just fell in love with the landscape. Things work surprisingly quickly in rewilded systems, and it’s been so exciting to see these transformations happening in the time I’ve been here.’

Together, Ned and Lia form part of the dynamic young team who are beginning to explore new avenues for the estate beyond its own rewilded boundaries, finding fresh ways to communicate its ethos to the wider world.

‘For me, one of the main issues is that there's just this massive mismanagement of resources in the UK,’ says Ned. ‘Twenty percent of our land is producing just 3% of our overall output. If that land was put across to a system like rewilding, it would be enough to offset all the carbon in our food system. So there's huge scope for change.’

For Ned, animals are central to the rewilding revolution. Rather than traditional breeds, Knepp’s animals are proxies for species which once roamed wild across Britain: longhorn cattle for aurochs; roe and fallow deer for wild deer; Exmoor ponies for horses; Tamworth pigs for wild boars. According to rewilding theory, each of these species occupied a cornerstone role within the ancient ecosystem; Knepp is simply replacing what’s been lost, restoring habitats lost due to industrialised agriculture.

‘Our animals are substitutes for ones that are extinct,’ he explains. ‘Our heavy browsers feed on scrubland, allowing light to get in. Different habitats spring up from that. We mimic booms and busts in nature, only taking animals off the land when there's not enough vegetation, or their impact is becoming too large. Nutrients are returned through composting and recycling. That’s where the restaurant and butchery comes in: it allows our visitors to participate directly in that life cycle, and we get this incredible, unique rewilded meat no-one else has.’

But as Ned admits, the approach has its drawbacks, not least that running a business according to the cycles of nature means that outcomes are inherently unpredictable. ‘The land comes first here, always, which means the butchery and the kitchen have to take what we’re given.’ For the first time, he says, Knepp will sell out of its own meat this summer — a new prospect that’s prompted the beginning of a new journey, forming partnerships with like-minded suppliers who share Knepp’s rewilding DNA.

‘For us, it’s been this amazing opportunity to build a community, championing people we believe are doing the right thing,’ says Lia. ‘Hopefully, as Knepp’s influence grows, we can convince more producers to do the same, supporting them through that transition.’

Knepp’s butchery has been running since 2019; Wilding Kitchen since 2023. Before they opened, Ned explains, the estate was receiving around 9,000 visitors a year. That figure is now closer to 140,000. He thinks this is a clear indication that people are engaged with Knepp’s desire to reshape the agricultural landscape and create a more circular food system. But while food – and farming – will clearly continue to be a part of the estate’s future, both Ned and Lia think it’s vital for Knepp to diversify.

‘One thing we recognise is that not everyone's going to engage in our story through an ecology lens,’ says Lia. ‘Maybe not even a food lens. So we’re looking at different ways to reach people and bring them on board with rewilding. There are lots of ways we can do that, I think: through collaborations, cultural events, workshops, product design.’

Knepp’s glamping business is one example of such diversification in action. It has a cult following: spaces for its treehouses, cabins, yurts and bell tents sell out for the entire summer, often within days of going on sale. Equally popular are tours of the walled garden, along with guided wildlife safaris with estate rangers to explore rewilded areas. Knepp’s charcuterie range has been another success; it’s now stocked in dozens of farm shops across the UK, and has even found its way onto the rarified shelves of Fortnum & Mason. ‘We’re working on making our own Marmite with a local brewer, too,’ says Ned. ‘Believe it or not, it’s surprisingly difficult.’

Alongside devising a name for their nascent yeast extract, the couple have plenty of other projects in the pipeline. One long-term idea is to reconnect Knepp with the sea: it’s just 12 miles to the south coast, and restoring the lost link between inland and coastal habitats has been a long-held dream. It is part of an even grander vision: to create a network of nature corridors between rewilded estates across the UK, connecting wild pockets into one huge, integrated whole. There are also putative plans for an events building to host workshops and concerts. There’s even hushed talk of a brand new Knepp site: perhaps an inner-city version, bringing the rewilding concept into the urban landscape.

Though these are all currently just ideas, Ned admits, if there’s one thing that Knepp has shown over the last 20 years, it’s that thinking big is the only real way to make change happen.

‘As a society, I think we have to start thinking much further ahead,’ he says. ‘Historically, we’ve not been good at that. You know, by 2050, southern England will have the same climate as the south of France currently has. The food system is where the big fight will happen for climate change in this country — and the time to start fixing that system is right now. We really shouldn't be thinking 50 years into the future. We should be thinking 500 years, because that’s what nature does. And that’s what Knepp is all about.’

Visit the Knepp website for more information on their various rewilding projects, plus how to visit, stay and where to eat.

Director Alfred Hitchcock instinctively grasped the nation’s attitude towards our most unloved avian families when he made crows and gulls his two killers-in-chief in his horror classic The Birds. Our stock image of the marauding seagull might be less traumatic, but it’s still a rather heartless act — the carefree child on the promenade, relishing their ice cream until a grey-winged raider swoops down to snatch it.

Ironically, the one gull rarely guilty of that crime is, in some ways, the least loved of all: the great black-backed gull. It’s a formidable and — if its critics will permit — even magnificent seabird. Dark slate above and surf-white below, it is larger in size than all our raptors, except the two eagles. The chest is deep and muscular, whereas the huge bill has a heavy hooked tip. Yet sheer size renders great black-backs too ungainly for most ice-cream-stealing manoeuvres.

More important still is the fact that the species suffered centuries of persecution and, in the Victorian period, this was so intense that it drove the bird to the edge of extinction. Slow recovery ensued, however that long history of human antagonism has left great black-backed gulls instinctively wary. You can almost never get close to one.

Even when we willingly feed birds at the seaside, this species seldom joins the squabbling throng. Offal from trawlers and the rich pickings at rubbish dumps are among its stock feeding opportunities; nonetheless, the gull is less dependent upon human foods and retains a strong preference for coastal places. On many sea cliffs, it can be a major predator.

My most visceral experience of this came once on a Scottish beach. Rabbits were scampering to feed across the lawn-like turf by the shore, when suddenly there was a commotion of black-and-white wings. The gull then proceeded to manoeuvre a near full-grown rabbit into position and, with several convulsive gulps, shovel the entire animal down its maw.

Elsewhere, young auks and shearwaters can become key sources of food for the gulls’ own chicks. On the Welsh island of Skokholm, off the Pembrokeshire coast, a mere 20 adult great black-backs were recorded as having taken 1,400 shearwaters in a single season.

We often colour these scenarios with a simplistic moral overlay — predator bad, victim good — even if this misunderstands the wider processes underpinning these environments. Birds such as shearwaters and puffins can be remarkably long lived and, if every chick survived to join the adult breeding population, their overall numbers would increase exponentially.

Great black-backs are natural constituents in many coastal settings. Yet there are places where there is no tolerance for this predatory behaviour. On the same island where I watched my bird catching rabbits, I was told by local crofters how the gulls were dangerous for their sheep. Not only did they accuse them of taking lambs, but also of blinding and killing full-grown ewes.

The issues are further entangled because the species has suffered a prolonged UK decline. Our breeding total is only 15,000 pairs, although this country is a destination for wider European populations in winter, when numbers swell to 77,000. Even so, the bird lives in a world of multiple jeopardy: at risk from collisions with offshore wind turbines, from various kinds of pollution, including seaborne plastics, from diseases such as avian flu and from entanglement in trawler nets.

I will close with a final anecdote that, if it incites no love for the world’s largest gull, might evoke grudging respect. I was once on a Scottish shoreline where a sperm whale had been washed up the previous winter. The carcass had lain there for months and, although it had broken into two enormous bone-girded reefs, it had lost none of its bulk. There was no sense of decay except for a strong smell in the air. The body yielded nothing to my full weight nor the impress of my boot.

Days later, I chanced upon the whale and there were two great black-backed gulls, patiently working the flesh, shifting their angles of approach, pausing occasionally to swallow fids of stone-like tissue. I finally realised: not only what a bird this is, but, also, what an extraordinary digestive tract.

This feature first appeared in the May 27, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

At a time when public confidence in artificial intelligence (AI) seems lower than usual, a group of scientists at the University of Cambridge has found at least one good use for the stuff.

Using an AI tool known as Tessera, which maps out the country using images taken from space, the team has managed to identify specific sites that might offer habitat for hedgehogs. Tessera captures the landscape in such minute detail that it can glean an individual hedgerow, later using AI to flesh out areas obscured by cloud cover. Chosen places could allow hedgehog populations to thrive.

Experts also believe that the technology might help them identify barriers to hedgehogs finding food and mates. Indeed, in today’s heavily fragmented environment, males of the species too rarely enjoy successful breeding. This is due to roaming ranges (obstacles include housing, new roads and tidy gardens).

To further improve the accuracy of their monitoring, researchers will also attach tiny GPS trackers to some of the creatures to record their movements. Tech does have its uses…

This feature first appeared in the May 27, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

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In some ways, there are two kinds of cormorants. There’s the real bird, the coastal fish-eating species that, at any range, looks black. See them well, however, and you appreciate how the adults have a beautiful oil-on-water iridescence, which shines variously green, blue, bronze brown and purple, depending on the light. Cormorants possess large webbed feet, thick sinuous necks, long hook-tipped beaks and short wings for a goose-sized bird. This all makes it appear heavy in flight, ungainly as it walks and awkward as it gets airborne.

Then there is the cormorant that dwells between our ears. This imagined version is also a dark beast, with a huge appetite for fish and an almost wilful disdain for fishermen, fishing clubs and for lakes or waterways that are expensively stocked with captive-bred fish. Milton anticipated this ill-will when he made the bird an image of Satan in Paradise Lost: ‘On the Tree of Life/… Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life/Thereby regained but sat devising death.’

Unfortunately for fishing folk, cormorants have undergone a range change in the past few decades, with breeding numbers increasing to about 9,000 pairs. The wintering total is put at 65,000 birds, many on inland waterways. That switch by what is usually considered a coastal bird to freshwater places has been triggered by the spread in the UK of Continental cormorants. The subspecies, technically known as Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, is better adapted to lakes and reservoirs and it is largely birds of this race that have triggered controversy.

Some of the claims against cormorants are rooted in fact. Numbers have grown across Europe and cormorants are supreme catchers of fish. If you see one swimming underwater, it’s astonishing how the bird loses its air-filled feathery bulk and becomes a lithe, almost snake-like organism that can twist and writhe after prey. The species has been recorded to take more than 90 different fish types, from tiny sand-eels to conger eels that are 2½ft long. This prowess is not appreciated by some human competitors, who speak of a ‘black plague’ or ‘black death’ ruining angling.

Cormorants have been illegally shot and poisoned, some with paracetamol crushed inside dead fish. Wilder claims are that each bird takes 6lb of fish daily — six times the average consumption and more than twice the bird’s own weight. Equally questionable is the notion that cormorants injure, but cannot swallow, large fish or that they eat large numbers of small fish and disproportionately deplete the population. What is not in doubt is the background ecology that brings about cormorant conflict.

Anglers want to boost the numbers of their potential prey by introducing captive-reared fish. That artificial increase serves as a magnet for all kinds of fish-eating birds. Some of them, herons and goosanders, as well as cormorants, are inevitably unpopular and clubs seek Government licences to legally kill them. A previous limit to the cull of cormorants was set at 3,000 birds, but fishing clubs have sought to increase the number of legal licences issued for control. That goal received recent support from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, which recommended wider culls to reduce Europe’s total cormorant numbers. All of these moves butt up against protections both in UK law and EU legislation. So far, there is little hope of reconciliation.

One thing that might put the conflict in context is the long tradition of blaming other animals for declines in fish numbers. In Cornwall during the 1920s, thousands of shags were shot. Off the Northumberland coasts, it was young grey seals that were culled. In the 1970s, on a Carmarthenshire estuary, oyster-catchers were blamed for destroying the local shellfish industry. About 10,000 birds were duly shot, only for the cockle numbers to collapse shortly afterwards. Blaming birds for damaging fisheries in a world where four-fifths of all main catch species are judged to be harvested to or beyond sustainable limits is perhaps starting to sound like a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

This feature first appeared in Country Life's print edition on May 13, 2026. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Here at Country Life, we love the Chelsea Flower Show — and we know you do too. So we're absolutely delighted to bring you this very special edition of the Country Life Podcast, recorded live in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, with Clive Nichols and Kathryn Bradley-Hole.

Kathryn was Country Life's gardens editor for 18 years until moving on to concentrate on writing, and has a lifetime of experience in the horticultural world — and it's also the 40th anniversary of her first trip to the Chelsea Flower Show.

Coincidentally, Clive has also been coming to SW3 for exactly 40 years. The man dubbed 'the king of garden photography' is a regular contributor to Country Life, and we're thrilled that he's not only taken all our pictures from the show this year, but also appeared on this episode of the Country Life Podcast.

Kathryn and Clive talk about their favourite bits of the Chelsea Flower Show, the gardens they'd most like to have back at their own homes, why the King's garden wasn't given a fair crack at having the impact it should have done, and what they'd do themselves if they were designing their own showpiece at SW3.

Episode credits

Host and editor: Toby Keel

Guests: Kathryn Bradley-Hole and Clive Nichols

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Back next time: James Fisher

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

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As the Season gets under way this month, Britain’s intelligentsia will descend upon the Hay Festival. I’ve always loved that a glorified book fair on the Welsh borders can morph into our very own Venice Biennale: a who’s who of Life & Arts where Dua Lipa might clink glasses with the Pope. It all began in 1988 with the winnings from a game of Poker; a year later, the festival was welcoming Arthur Miller as a headline act.

Hay has helped to shape the cultural discourse ever since, a cursory glance at its keynote speakers in the intervening decades akin to looking through a time capsule. The gradual addition of certain names and roles within Hay’s governing body reveals the varying concerns of the age: inequality, free speech and artificial intelligence. To Hay’s credit, these concerns tend to stick. No doubt the most recurring, however, is the climate.

This year is no different, although the focus will shift from the more usual suspects (birds, weather and renewable energy) to something more conspicuously bland: plankton. As ever, Hay is on the money. What for years have been mumblings about the ripple-effect of aquatic plants, on everything from global warming to biodiversity, are finally getting their dues. Leading the charge is Vincent Doumeizel, a senior adviser on oceans to the UN Global Compact, whose talk at Hay on May 23 has already sold out. His new book, The Power of Plankton (The Book Social, £19.99), identifies this as the source of all life.

Plankton makes up 90% of the biomass in our oceans. Its myriad subspecies live in suspension, perpetually drifting, unable to work against the current. This impotence is misleading: plankton defines the temperature of the planet, absorbing roughly half our global emissions and converting carbon through photosynthesis. It helps to form clouds — which, in turn, reflect the sunlight — and, where oxygen production is concerned, it outperforms rainforests by as much as 400%.

The trouble is we know little about how it actually works, its species’ microscopic size and geographical spread working against researchers. What we do know tends to raise only more questions: why are there so many subspecies and why does this not beget more competition? Why do some resemble algae, but others look closer to shrimp? A mystery we have solved is this: plankton’s role as a sequester of carbon is effective only when it sinks. The key subspecies here are grouped under the name of diatoms, the number of which is falling in open-ocean regions. That of surface plankton, by contrast, is rising.

Other regions, ruled by different currents, tell yet another story. Perhaps theirs is more positive; although, without further research, conclusions will remain uncertain. ‘If we understand plankton,’ Mr Doumeizel said two weeks ago on the Futureproof podcast, ‘then we begin to understand the biology of our oceans.’ Learning — and funding —starts with conversation. Let us hope this one doesn’t crash too soon after takeoff.

This feature originally appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Has anything on television ever been sexier than Rivals? The show, inspired by Dame Jilly Cooper’s 1988 romp of the same name, sees the scheming Sir Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) face off against left-leaning journalist Declan O’Hara, infamous womaniser and MP Sir Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and new money tech-wizz Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) over the rights for the south-west ITV franchise. In between the political manoeuvrings, everyone is in love with the wrong person and everyone is having lots and lots of affairs. Series two, which debuts today, picks up midway through the novel, which is set in the fictional county of Rutshire, but which is based on, and filmed in, the Cotswolds.

‘I had no relationship with the Cotswolds before coming on board,’ Alex says when I meet him and Bella MacLean — who plays his wide-eyed, but spunky love interest, Taggie — at a hotel in London. ‘I guess I have more of a relationship with it now. It's such a beautiful place, isn't it?’

‘I love how we're talking about it like it's a person,’ says Bella, laughing, before joking that her ‘relationship’ with the Cotswolds ‘is sort of tumultuous and deeply sexual.’ Bella might be joking, but the show’s setting really is a vital character, albeit one that doesn’t speak — and it is a very sexually-charged iteration of the British countryside.

If you've seen series one, you'll already be well aware of Rivals’ on-screen sex appeal. There are chiseled polo players with megawatt smiles and glistening ponies galloping around in slow-motion; there’s naked tennis, skinny dipping in the pool and hedonistic house parties, boozy hunt balls, lavish garden parties and, of course, countless torrid affairs. Much of it plays out to the soundtrack of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance.

It might seem like the stuff of fantasy — after all, the Cotswolds tend to conjure up visions of honey-stone cottages, rolling hills and National Trust tea rooms — but Rivals is very much rooted in reality.

Forty years ago, the Cotswolds was teeming with the country's elite — and they really liked to party. Cooper, who moved from Yorkshire to a 14th century manor house in Gloucestershire, in 1982, was a firsthand witness. ‘Everybody was having sex with everybody, I think,’ she once told The Irish Times, adding, ‘it was such a fun time.’

Alex was among those who was surprised to learn that the sexed-up party land he helped depict in the show wasn’t the stuff of fantasy. ‘We'd end up having chats with lots of the people whose houses we were filming in,’ he says, ‘and they often would be friends of Cooper's, funnily enough.’ If walls could talk…

In series two, Rupert and Taggie’s relationship reaches a tipping point at an elaborate (and drunken) hunt ball. ‘I don't think it's ruining anything, particularly, to say that ours [hunt ball] is pretty risqué and raunchy,’ says Alex. ‘And apparently it was absolutely nothing compared to what actually would happen. So, I think [Rivals] is fairly accurate — if not a little bit watered down!’

Daring to write about this elite world and their wild pursuits was a bold move on Cooper’s part. Plenty took offence. ‘A lot of people liked it very much,’ she once told The Guardian of Riders, a book that was published before Rivals. But, she added, 'the editor of Horse and Hound said it was a disgusting book’.

Cooper’s saving grace — and the real reason her books were so popular — was the fact that behind the sex you’d find characters with three-dimensional personalities. As Rupert and Taggie, Alex and Bella are the show’s beating heart — the couple who ground the wild sexiness of it all in real emotion. Their unexpected and somewhat taboo (there’s a 16-year age difference) romance is surprisingly sweet and tender.

'There is a kind of a Darcy-Lizzie Bennett, [or a] Rochester [thing going on],' Alex says of the relationship. '[Romance tropes] are something that Cooper seemed to be playing with: It's a countryside story – [there are] these massive manor houses — yet transplanting it into the 1980s and, you know, adding sort of the mores of the 80s — and sex. It's a really interesting thing to do.'

The rolling hills, rambling ancient manor houses, microcosmic social world and innate allure of all of that privacy feels very conducive to a Jane Austen-esque romance. Afterall, Cooper was often referred to as the 'Jane Austen of her time'. A sexy update on the classic romance was just what the 1980s called for and, it seems, it's what we're all hankering for now, too. The new adaptation has been something of a shock hit, with season one reaching more than 20 million viewers, becoming the best performing new UK drama of 2024.

Perhaps the popularity of this adaptation hints at a return to the Cotswolds’ 1980s heyday? It has, of course, always been popular, but recent events have accelerated demand and changed who was buying and visiting. When series one was released in 2024, the countryside was still riding its Covid-induced popularity wave, during which time many of the country’s biggest names decided to hunker down there. Lottie Moss spent her Lockdown in big sister Kate’s Cotswolds manor; the Beckhams shared countless photographs of their Cotswolds farmhouse, garden and growing menagerie; Boris and Carrie Johnson celebrated their 2022 marriage with a festival-style party at Daylesford House. Post-Covid, countless celebrities have been lured away from big cities and the USA, including Liam Gallagher, Ellen DeGeneres, James Blunt, and Lily Allen. Even Beyoncé and Jay-Z are reportedly looking to buy.

The release of Plum Sykes’s semi-fictional 'Wives Like Us' — the author's sort of satirical take on life in the Cotswolds that reads like a death knell to normalcy — also in 2024, compounded things.

Swathes of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire have, cleverly, been quietly updating things. There are new private doctor services, and household staffing and security agencies, and hotels and private members’ clubs (e.g Estelle Manor and the ever-growing Daylesford empire).

With the Cotswolds once again a vibrant playground for the wealthy, Rivals really is the rural romp and romance we need.

Season two of Rivals is available to stream on Disney+ now.

If we had to pick a mascot for the Unloved Birds’ Club, we might look no further than this magnificently maligned creature, the carrion crow (Corvus corone). As if designed to evoke negative responses, they are black in plumage, coarse of voice and distasteful in name. Worse still, they’re thriving as never before. They need no human affection to achieve a significant population increase.

In the 1970s, there were an estimated one million pairs in Britain, but that was when hooded crows in northern Scotland and Ireland were deemed a race of their English counterparts. Hoodies may be a more attractive two-tone version of their cousin, with an almost pinkish caste to the grey underparts and back, but they occupy a near-identical ecological niche. Now, carrion and hooded crows are considered separate species; however, if we recombine their totals, they add up to 2,770,000 birds. Given those harsh, gravelly calls, we find it hard to appreciate that this 18in, 20oz creature is classified with songbirds. Many prefer to think of it as a kind of raptor, with reason — crows predate species as big as pigeons. They can snatch starlings or blue tits in mid-air.

In summer, they visit our gardens to pick off the wide-eyed young of blackbirds and thrushes, fresh from the nest. All this is central to their reputation, but the depth of opposition to crows could be summarised with a single observation made by the great naturalist David Bannerman. He described once finding a dump of about 200 egg shells, all sourced and devoured by crows, all originally taken from grouse nests and all on moors guarded by gamekeepers.

Carrion crows are major nest predators and are killed or trapped in the interests of gamebirds, although keepers freely acknowledge that the aim is to eliminate the crows’ depredations only during the breeding season. Managers of nature reserves tell a parallel story, particularly where they want to protect ground-nesting lapwings and curlews. I recall vividly a warden explaining how he used Larsen traps to catch crows on an East Anglian reserve and, sometimes, newly arrived birds filled the vacated breeding territory within hours of the capture of its previous holder. Given the number of hands raised against the beast, you might wonder if there’s anything to say in favour of carrion crows.

Actually, we could begin with that name. We might project upon the bird’s macabre associations with old flesh, but its real ecology is far more modest, even helpful, to us. Carrion crows are essentially dependent upon grassland invertebrates and, nine times out of 10, you see them doing what they love most: foraging in pasture for subsoil organisms, many of which are harmful for farmers. Carrion crows do take small songbirds and eggs. We respond with visceral horror when a crow eats our baby blackbirds, but those emotions don’t take account of the whole picture.

For a breeding thrush or blue tit to sustain its overall population, it needs to raise only one offspring to breed successfully like itself. Yet it may hatch dozens of chicks in its lifetime. Their breeding ecology has an inbuilt redundancy. Thrushes and tits are also predators, albeit bathed in admiration. Who of us cares passionately about worms taken by thrushes or the moth caterpillars devoured by blue tits? We make partial judgments to crows’ detriment.

One reason some dislike corvids is that they show a understanding of our antagonism. A crow’s ability to tell if a person is carrying a walking stick or a gun is proverbial. Britain’s great scholar of avian intelligence, Prof Nicola Clayton, has proved corvids possess intelligence comparable to that of primates. It is the bird’s supreme gift for adaptation that inspired Poet Laureate Ted Hughes to his most brilliant poetry collection. Crow was published in 1970, at the height of the Cold War, partly as the poet’s hope-filled response to the possibilities of nuclear holocaust. Hughes could have found no deeper, richer, more potent symbol for the idea of life’s imperishable genius than his central poetic motif — the much unloved, many talented, quick-witted crow.

This feature first appeared in the May 6, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The main source of vanilla globally, the world’s smallest waterlily and several species of magnolia could disappear, together with their evolutionary history, say scientists who have carried out the first worldwide study of extinction risk, linked to the tree of life, among flowering plants. They also estimate that, if current rates of loss continue, more than one-fifth (21.2%) of the evolutionary history of flowering plants worldwide will be lost.

During this global assessment, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and international collaborators identified 9,945 Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species, which is about 3% of all known flowering plant species.

These included the increasingly rare thick-stemmed Vanilla planifolia, an orchid that grows in the tropical forests of Mexico and Central and northern South America; the diminutive Nymphaea thermarum, also known as miniature Rwandan water lily, that has fallen victim to over-exploitation; Medusagyne oppositifolia, the jellyfish tree, which grows on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles; and the flowering plant Magnolia sinica, which is native to the south-east Yunnan Province in China.

Hondurodendron urceolatum, a dioecious tree found across a single mountain range in the Parque Nacional El Cusuco in Honduras, topped the EDGE list. The scientists ranked all 335,497 flowering plant species using molecular data, the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and computer modelling, in what is the largest conservation prioritisation study ever carried out.

With some species more evolutionarily distinctive than others because they have fewer close relatives on the tree of life — such as Ginkgo biloba, the maidenhair tree, which is the only known descendant of an ancient lineage dating back more than 300 million years — researchers had needed a clearer roadmap to protect those at-risk plants.

The impressive-looking Amorphophallus titanum is also a species identified by the EDGE assessments due to its risk of extinction.

‘By applying the EDGE approach to flowering plants, we are better able to protect our planet’s rich, bustling ecosystems that have taken billions of years to develop,’ explains the study’s co-lead Dr Rikki Gumbs, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology at ZSL, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary.

Kew’s new exhibition of EDGE species, including the critically endangered blue amaryllis or empress of Brazil (Worsleya procera) and the Albany pitcher plant (Cephalotus follicularis) from Western Australia, opens on May 20.

This feature first appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

'There are moments in farming when change feels like a bold decision and others when it feels more like survival. What felt like a leap into regenerative farming has turned out to be more of a signpost,’ says Charles Mann. He is one of several regenerative farmers in the Cotswolds, who combine a passion for restoring the pastoral landscape of centuries ago with an understanding of the challenges growing crops on the brash the area is famous for, a determination to build soil resilience and the intuition of how to balance food production with Nature recovery.

Oxleaze Farm on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border, which he inherited from his father in 1978, was rooted in the conventional practices of the day. ‘Sprays, fertilisers and the pursuit of ever-higher yields were not only the norm, they were the measure of success. It worked, until it didn’t. Perhaps it was a growing awareness of the countryside beyond the balance sheet or a sense that something was missing,’ he reflects. ‘Diversification had already begun, converting old buildings into office lets. Renewable-energy projects followed, enabling those living and working on the farm to enjoy green energy. We planted woodland and hedges to encourage wildlife and paid closer attention to the land itself, rather than merely what we could extract from it.’

In 2004, a poor harvest coupled with dismal prices forced a reckoning. It became clear that the old model — high input, high output — was not as resilient as it seemed, so Charles took what felt like a radical decision and converted to organic farming. ‘We embraced the stewardship and environmental schemes available, not only for the financial support, but because they aligned with our growing belief that farming should work with Nature, not against it.’

Driven by a passion for regenerative farming that came from a realisation that the food system is unsustainable, Jonty Brunyee studied environmental management before undertaking a Nuffield Farming Scholarship and travelling the world looking for solutions — ‘that’s when regenerative farming hit me right between the eyes’. Jonty never thought he would run his own farm, being a fourth son of four, so taking on the tenancy of the National Trust’s Gloucestershire Conygree Farm in 2004 was significant: ‘My aim has been to show that a small regenerative farm can be great for wildlife, carbon neutral, profitable and can feed people,’ he asserts. ‘We have done this by stacking regenerative enterprises that work together and benefit the wider system. It was let as a “part-time farm” (providing enough income for only half a person). Now, four of us work here and run events for our community and fellow farmers. The farm is alive.’

It might be a niche ambition for some, but ‘getting people excited about soil and how to make it healthy is a lifetime goal of mine,’ confesses Annie Landless, manager of Ampney Brook Farm, a regenerative organic farm in Gloucestershire selling beef, pork, venison and vegetables. ‘That and creating a profitable farming business that regenerates soil, is full of life, allows livestock to express their natural behaviours, grows nutrient-dense crops and produces healthy food at scale.’

Her childhood was spent on the family farm rearing orphan lambs, riding ponies and selling organic beef at farmers’ markets with her parents. After becoming unwell with what she thought were food intolerances, she became curious about the source of what she was eating. Moving to London to work for a click-and-collect farmers’ market connecting farms with local customers, she met ‘inspirational people leading the way with what is now called regenerative farming, sharing ideas on improving soil health, biodiversity and selling fresh produce directly to the public. I was hooked’.

Phil Gordon-Jones experienced a similar awakening. Born in Miami, Florida, he fell in love with the countryside when his parents bought a house on a farm in Wiltshire and ended up helping in the grain store, riding in the combine and relief milking. When studying at Cirencester’s Royal Agricultural College, ‘we used to laugh at the few-and-far-between organic farmers with their low yields and thistles growing in their cow pastures,’ he remembers.

However, 12 years as head stockman at Daylesford Organic ‘was an eye-opener, learning about organic farming and growing pastures without the use of artificial fertilisers. It gave me a new view of farming with nature for the future, basing decisions on how it will affect the land’. He now manages Fir Farm, Gloucestershire, a Pasture-Fed Livestock Association (PFLA), organic and regenerative mixed farming business and he is a member of the Cotswold Regenerative Agriculture Accelerator Programme, an initiative for like-minded farmers and advisers wanting to expand their understanding of regenerative and agroecological practices.

‘At Fir Farm, we put Nature and soil at the forefront of every decision we make,’ Phil says. ‘We have ecologists who study bird, plant and bug life and advise how we can make things better. For example, last year, we brought our ornithologist in before cutting the silage; he found skylark nests and we cut around them. I’m sure the neighbours thought I was mad, but the skylarks sat on their nests until the fledglings were ready to fly.’

It is a philosophy that Sam Phillips already subscribes to at Macaroni Farm, a 2,000-acre mixed cereal and beef farm in Gloucestershire that his father converted to organic in 1999. ‘My great-grandfather would shoot 125 brace of grey partridge on a day without putting down reared game because of good farming practice and game management,’ he says. ‘With intensive agriculture and the loss of habitat, artificial inputs and monoculture, grey-partridge numbers plummeted, so we’ve been doing our bit to restore them. Corn bunting, skylark, linnet, yellowhammer and lapwing populations have increased considerably, too, due to our efforts. We even have a resident hen harrier, never seen before on the farm.’ Such successes contributed to him winning the Gold Purdey Award in 2025 in recognition of wildlife and game conservation.

Mark Tufnell has driven similar change at Calmsden, near Cirencester, which his great- grandfather bought and he has farmed since his father died in 1995. ‘Field margins of wildflowers, beetle banks, cover strips, conservation headlands, nesting margins and hedges cut on a two- or three-year rotation provide habitat for farmland birds,’ Mark points out. ‘We’ve seen growing numbers of skylarks, yellowhammers, corn buntings and grey partridges since the programme began. Each year, we do an ecological survey and the 10-year results show an increase in birds, pollinators and rare arable plants, proving Nature recovery can run alongside food production.’

What is evident from each of the farmers is the desire not only to reinstate, but also to elevate. ‘We talk about sustainable farming being the way forward, yet the definition of sustainable is “to maintain at a certain rate or level”,’ says Phil. ‘I don’t want to maintain what we’re doing, I want to improve our soils, increase wildlife populations and rejuvenate the microbiome under our feet.’ Jonty concurs: ‘Simply sustaining is not enough — we must rebuild, improve and enhance if we are going to save the planet and nourish our communities. It begins with soil and biodiversity, then nutrients and water and, ultimately, our landscapes and people. We must farm with Nature, not against it.’

There are five key principles to regenerative farming: minimising soil disturbance, keeping soil covered, maintaining living roots, maximising plant diversity and integrating livestock to stimulate natural nutrient cycles. Annie elaborates: ‘We don’t worry too much about weeds, as they are indicators of what is happening in the soil. We want to see a diverse range of plants with a diverse range of roots feeding a diverse range of soil micro-organisms. In winter, we graze cows outside [negating the need for straw, antibiotics and machinery]; the seeds in the hay residue and manure from the cattle feed a host of insects, birds and soil organisms. In the summer, cows graze through fields of grass, herbs and legumes full of bees, dragonflies and butterflies. We grow heritage and genetically diverse population wheats that grow tall, develop strong root systems and have broad leaves to shade out competition. Our soil and fields are alive and resilient.’

Setting out to plough your own furrow in the regenerative-farming landscape can be a daunting prospect and, as Jonty has discovered, ‘requires a different way of seeing and measuring outcomes. Because we are always learning as it’s so complex, imposter syndrome is real and it can feel isolating and a bit “woo woo” at times’. Charles is relieved that farming friends — who initially greeted his decision with raised eyebrows — have become more accepting: ‘What once looked like an eccentric departure is now part of a broader movement, so conversations that might once have been avoided are now revisited with genuine interest,’ he muses.

However, the sceptics remain. ‘It’s tough being a young woman in a male-dominated environment and doing things differently to “how it’s always been done”,’ Annie says. ‘Setting up multiple new enterprises on the farm means plenty of hurdles and holding your nerve when the neighbours are looking over the hedge.’

There are wider pressures, too. With the recent Land Use Framework, farmers are being pushed to grow more food on less land and won’t be funded through public finance to set aside non-productive land for biodiversity restoration. ‘The majority of the land I farm is of low productivity, so not best suited for high-output agriculture,’ admits a concerned Sam. ‘We’re good at raising high-quality livestock and meat through our mineral-rich pastures and that’s the direction I want to head in over the next 30 years. However, as of January 1, 2027, we might have to plough everything up and try to grow food on land we know we can’t make money out of.’ The thin, stony Cotswold brash that is susceptible to the effects of climate change has been hit hard by recent droughts, as Mark laments: ‘Yields from the past two harvests have been notably poor, so the aim is to secure premiums for the arable crops. Recently, we’ve introduced cover crops to enhance soil fertility and prevent any erosion and nutrient run-off. We’re also using sheep to graze the crops off, before planting spring barley and soil organic matter continues to improve. Ultimately, the two main aims are to provide food for human consumption and improve biodiversity. Both need to occur alongside running a profitable enterprise.’

Optimistically, however, for Sam ‘farmers are the solution’: ‘We can produce food, restore nature, address flood mitigation, capture carbon… but we need the right mechanism to allow us to do so,’ he asserts. ‘We need a cross-party, 20-year food, farming and Nature-recovery strategy; then we can plan accordingly, create a system that suits the land and do something that gives stability for decades. At the moment, farmers don’t know where they’re going to be next year. We simply have to continue to operate best practice and engage with and educate the public as much as possible. I’d put nutrition on every syllabus. If you educate people young, that will have a knock-on effect in terms of supporting farmers, who are producing food that’s got great nutritional value. Everyone needs a farmer three times a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner.’

The wider public is already reaping the rewards of the innovative seeds these farmers have sown, from Annie selling veg and meat boxes through the Ampney Brook website so local customers can order and collect from the farm or nearby collection points to Jonty developing networking projects, such as Emergent Generation and RegenDeep, and Mark hosting the Gloucestershire Root Fruit and Grain Society for its annual farm walk and tillage event.

As for those ensconced in it: ‘Our children have grown up with the farm, not only as a backdrop, but as a constant presence — a playground, a place of work and, gradually, a shared responsibility,’ Charles states. ‘They’ve lived through its organic transition and now bring their own ideas, whether that’s new approaches to land management, fresh inspiration for diversification or a different way of communicating what we do.

‘Farming today is less about maximising output at all costs and more about balancing productivity and stewardship, business and beauty, tradition and change. My father might have raised an eyebrow at some of the directions we’ve taken, but I like to think he would have recognised the underlying aim. It’s comforting to realise that what once felt like long-term decisions are merely part of a longer story.’

This isn’t simply an ongoing narrative, however. By taking bold steps, yet treading carefully to forge their own paths, these farmers have created a guidebook out of which others can take a leaf — a regeneratively grown one, at that.

Have you experienced climate change first hand, I ask Bertie Gregory — the 32-year-old Emmy and BAFTA-award-winning wildlife cameraman. ‘Yes, 100%. You can’t get away from it. Every shoot I go on, the seasons are out of whack, the animals are out of whack. Every scientist and guide you talk to says: “It used to be more predictable.”’

Bertie — the name behind the headline-making shot of a polar bear leaping into a pod of beluga whales in the BBC’s 2019 Seven Worlds, One Planet —is quick to admit that he has benefited hugely from the natural world, but also keen to point out that he’s genuinely passionate about it. The companies he works for — including the BBC and National Geographic — offset the carbon footprint of their productions and he is personally funding the planting of a forest in Dorset. ‘These stories need to get told. If they aren’t told, people aren’t going to know about them.’

Apart from climate change, the cameraman and sometime presenter is working to get the trophy hunting of wolves banned in British Columbia. ‘It’s all well and good if we care about wolves saying “we need to stop climate change”, but if there are no wolves left when we’ve solved that problem [climate change] in 100 years or so, that’s going to be a real shame.’

Bertie has been taking pictures since the age of 12 — initially using a compact camera, surreptitiously stolen from his father, to photograph his fish tank and the wildlife around his home. ‘A lot of my friends thought I was a complete freak,’ he recalls without irony, but ‘being able to show them places they had walked past every day without realising what was there and seeing them genuinely excited — it gave me a real buzz.’

One zoology degree and 2 1⁄2 years assisting National Geographic photographer Steve Winter later (Bertie left his own graduation early for the job), he’s upgraded the compact camera for a half-a-million-pound gyro-stabilised system — which he used to film Sir David Attenborough walking across a beach in Iceland for the opening sequence of Seven Worlds, from a helicopter.

He calls the experience of working with Sir David ‘spine tingling, simply because he’s such a pro and so lovely in real life. You know the cliché line people say “never meet your hero”? Those people haven’t met David Attenborough’.

The cameraman also specialises in drone photography and works underwater, where ‘you still have to be very close to your subject, so you tend to have very intimate, adrenaline-fuelled encounters’, and, since our interview, has transitioned to a camera-facing role

Some might say too close for comfort.

On a shoot with Steller sea lions, off the west coast of Canada, one playful animal repeatedly pulled the scuba regulator out of Bertie's mouth. In the Canadian sub-Arctic, he was lucky enough to film a harp seal pup (below) taking its first dip — something they do only 10 to 14 days after birth.

‘It was the situation we were hoping for, but we never thought we’d get it. It was a dream idea. I got my dry suit on and the camera and underwater housing, slipped into the water and waited. I spent 1 1⁄2 hours with the mother and pup. In that period, the pup went from being this flappy little mess that kept trying to sit on my head to something that looked like a proper seal.’

A good thing, too, given that harp-seal mothers abandon pups immediately after weaning (at a maximum of two weeks, it’s the second-shortest weaning period of any mammal) to hunt and fend for themselves.

Has he ever felt in danger when working? ‘Ninety-nine times out of 100, it’s humans that have caused the dangerous situation. The media would have you believe the natural world is a really dangerous place and wild animals are out to kill you, which is rubbish. We don’t put ourselves in situations where animals might be defensive or aggressive towards us because that would be irresponsible.’

What about filming those hard-to-watch moments? ‘If humans are responsible for the bad thing you’re seeing, it’s a difficult challenge.’ He elaborates: ‘If you film it and don’t help, you could argue that, although that animal is going to suffer, filming it and getting people’s eyes on it all around the world might mean avoiding many more of that species meeting the same fate.’

He has, however, come to the conclusion that, if mankind is behind the problem, he will ultimately intervene.

Bertie’s work has taken him all over the world, including his current favourite — South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean. It took a week, on a 50 foot sailboat in rough seas, to reach the island, which has one of the highest concentrations of wildlife on the planet.

He’s normally on location for months at a time and spends only five to six weeks of the year back in the UK. Anyone hoping to follow in his footsteps, he says, should visit the temperate rainforest-covered mountains and coastline of Vancouver Island, off Canada’s Pacific Coast — think killer, grey and humpback whales, bears and wolves. ‘By going there, you are helping to put a value on these animals, so they are worth far more alive than dead. And that goes for many places.’

There was no back-up plan, he discloses, and it’s only now that he realises how lucky and rare it is to find something you’re so fanatical about at such a young age. ‘It’s hard work, but it doesn’t really feel like work.’

This feature originally appeared in a 2020 issue of Country Life. It has been updated for clarity.

‘Secrets Of The Bees’ and ‘Cheetahs Up Close’, among other show hosted by Bertie Gregory, are available to view on Disney Plus.

One of the most delightful programmes on recent television has been Sam & Ade Go Birding (Channel 5), in which Samuel West, who plays the prickly Siegfried Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small, takes a friend, fellow actor Ade Edmondson, birdwatching.

It turns out that Samuel, an RSPB ambassador, is an obsessive birder who records sightings in minute detail daily, goes off on tangents and knows a lot of fascinating facts. Ade, the perfect foil, cheerfully admits to knowing little about avian life and declares contentment at communing with a robin.

They view awesome clouds of pink-footed geese swirling over the marshes of Holkham, north Norfolk, at first light, chase a rare warbler in west Cornwall and listen for bitterns amid the reedy Somerset Levels.

Friendship, wine, cooking, grief, jokes, companionable silence and open-mouthed wonder are involved. It’s gentle: the two actors resist declaiming or the temptation to bounce around like noisy Tiggers.

Reviewing the latest bird books in this week's issue, naturalist and writer Mark Cocker, who begins a new series this week on less popular members of the avian world, reflects why birds, the ‘all-flying, all-singing dinosaur descendants’, capture hearts and are loved disproportionately over other species.

Sir David Attenborough, who appears on our Frontispiece this week in honour of his 100th birthday (May 8), has been responsible for not only fostering this with the most mesmerising birdy footage — chubby puffins, cadaverous vultures, featherweight hummingbirds — but for enlightening us about an extraordinary spread of species.

Like Samuel, Sir David had thespian relations, a cultured upbringing, an early fascination with natural history — in his case collecting newts — and grasped the bigger environmental picture and Man’s irresponsibility at a young age.

His background in general programme-making shows in the musical cadences of his speech and clear diction; there is a perpetual hint of humour, the avoidance of excitable shouting and, crucially, knowing when to stay off camera.

The watcher is irresistibly drawn in, whether Sir David is musing on copulating geckos, chimps pulling funny faces, a pack of killer whales about to massacre a porpoise or the speed with which foxglove petals open.

The camera work is, of course, outstanding, but the brilliance — the USP — is in the subtle combination of wonder and reality, however soothingly delivered.

He doesn’t hold back on the fact that Nature in all its splendour is ‘red in tooth and claw’, that life in the animal kingdom is a brutal survival of the fittest. Creatures predate each other and don’t always know when to stop. Their lifestyles can be as hard to watch as they are spectacular.

Thank you, Sir David, for bringing this blend of exhilaration and education into our sitting rooms, and Happy Birthday.

This feature originally appeared in the May 6, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

A study appeared in The Lancet Public Health last month — an occurrence that rarely elicits national attention — that found our pollen season is now nearly two weeks longer than it was in the 1990s. The timing was propitious: bunged-up noses and itchy eyes are as common in spring as an item on Nicky Haslam’s annual tea towel and a nasal overtone now supersedes any conversation in which one takes part, or on which one eavesdrops. Perhaps our adenoidal Prime Minister thinks it’s all a case of imitation and flattery, although tomorrow’s elections will show the reality is anything but. Sorry, Sir Keir: it is just hay fever.

The chatter on the topic these past few weeks, however, suggests the tide of ignorance may finally be turning. Tackling the cause of hay fever has often ranked low on our list of priorities, the condition deemed either too unsexy or too indulgent to warrant much attention. For decades, the professional recommendation has been simply to take an antihistamine and grow up; meanwhile, town planners and landscape architects have been busy finding ways to mitigate the damage caused by allergenic trees. The first step, to the uninitiated, is to quit planting male trees over their female counterparts, which trap pollen from the air. Moving into summer, the key is to keep grasses short (a trade-off for rewilders who favour wildflower meadows) and finally, come autumn, one has to target the weeds.

Trees remain our primary concern. Historically, town planners have preferred to plant male trees because these are tidier and easier to maintain, producing no seeds, fruits or pods the way female trees do. These at least appear to be less of a nuisance to citizens. Yet hay fever continues to get worse: an estimated 13 million to 18 million people suffer from the condition in Britain (roughly a quarter of the population), with a 2021 poll of 7,000 people finding that 37% had developed symptoms for the first time within the previous five years. In the worst-case scenario, victims can suffer from angioedema, chronic sinusitis and asthma. With that, the quest to change what and how we plant has become galvanised.

How, then, should we weave more female trees into our landscape? Going further still: what more do we stand to gain from them? London’s green-minded mayor has previously hinted at planting an urban jungle along a soon-to-be-pedestrianised section of Oxford Street, one of many environmental projects in a city where several boroughs are expected to vote Green. This is fertile ground for new female trees, the fruit of which might also support more avian life — and, in certain cases, yield crops for local citizens. It’s a win on all counts. Now, the real work begins.

This feature originally appeared in the May 6, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Bethany Handley was always an outdoorsy kid. Climbing mountains, crossing rivers or surfing in the sea near her home in South Wales, she lived and worked in the wild, with a job as an outdoor activity instructor.

All that changed in the matter of a few months as illness left her in a wheelchair. Instead of being out and about, she found herself in a rural home where all the paths she once walked were blocked off to her by stiles whose existence she'd once barely noticed.

Yet she has been determined not to let that stop her enjoying nature, doing everything she can to get out in the great outdoors — from surfing on a special board adapted for her by her brother, to getting her partner's help to climb ridges in the Black Mountains.

We're absolutely delighted that Bethany joined James Fisher for this week's instalment of the Country Life Podcast. She tells her story with grace, honesty and humour — a story she's also shared in a new book, My Body is a Meadow: Finding Freedom in the Outdoors, published on May 7, 2026.

Bethany talks about everything from the thoughts that ran through her head as she lay in her hospital bed to the efforts she makes today to campaign for better access to the countryside for the huge number of people in Britain who face problems getting around. It's a fascinating and salutary glimpse into a different life; you'll never take your legs for granted again.

My Body is a Meadow: Finding Freedom in the Outdoors by Bethany Handley is published by Headline — you can order a copy here.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Bethany Handley

Producer and Editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

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In the opening chapter of John Buchan’s Sick Heart River (1941), the main character Sir Edward Leithen is described as feeling tired of life. A friend tries to engage his interest and asks if he has heard the curlew that year as he ‘usually make[s] a pilgrimage somewhere to hear them’. We are told that, for northerners, curlews, not cuckoos, are regarded as the ‘heralds of spring’.

This brief reference to curlews is poignant. Leithen, who turns out to be terminally ill, is a recurring hero of the Buchan adventure stories, a lawyer and amateur ornithologist, considered among all Buchan’s action men to be the one to most closely resemble his creator in his solitariness and love of nature and wildernesses. The book’s tone is unusually reflective for the master of ‘shockers’ and the manuscript was finished shortly before Buchan’s death in 1940. He would have understood the curlew’s duality of meaning in folklore and literature — a creature that, for some, had life-affirming attributes and yet, for others, stirred gloom and foreboding.

Robert Burns was among those for whom the curlew (Numenius arquata), Britain’s largest wader, was a source of joy. In a letter of 1789, musing on human sensitivity to passing incidents in Nature, the Scottish poet confided that: ‘I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the Curlew in a Summer’s noon, or the wild, mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover in an autumnal-morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of Devotion or Poesy.’

Burns would have heard these long-billed, immensely shy, easily disturbed birds during explorations of the heathery upland moors. Curlews demonstrate immense faithfulness to their breeding grounds by returning to the same sites — primarily moors and farmland edges in northern and western Britain — year after year to pair off and breed (nests are laid in scrapes on the ground), rearing their young throughout the lengthening days of spring and early summer. It is at these times when, gliding and wheeling overhead, their bubbling trills and plaintive cries of cour-lee! cour-lee! have a vibrant, uplifting quality. ‘A moor without a curlew is like a night without a moon, and he who has not eyes for the one and ear for the other is to me a body without a soul,’ an observer told the Northumbrian naturalist George Bolam, who repeated it in his immense study Birds of Northumberland and The Eastern Borders (1912).

Yet the most evocative description of the spectacle of calling curlews was supplied by a Londoner, Henry Williamson in Tarka The Otter (1927). Williamson’s observations for the book were undertaken on Exmoor, between the Torridge and Taw rivers. ‘The birds fly up from solitary places, above their beloved and little ones,’ he explained. ‘And float the wind in a sweet uprising music. Slowly on spread and hollow wings they sink, and their cries are trilling and cadent, until they touch earth and lift their wings above their heads, and poising, loose the last notes from their throats, like gold bubbles rising into sky again.’

Yorkshireman Ted Hughes was another curlew admirer. He read Tarka The Otter as an 11-year-old boy and later asserted that it ‘gave shape and words to my world, as no book has ever done since’. It is fitting that he later settled in Devon, near the River Taw. A hunter in his Dalesman youth, Tarka helped Hughes develop a broader sensitivity towards Nature and the curlew featured in several poems. To Hughes, the bird had ‘a wobbling water-call’ and was a ‘wet-footed god of the horizons’ (Curlews in April, 1979). However, in an earlier poem The Horses (1957), out before dawn in ‘evil air’ and ‘frost-making still-ness’, Hughes found ‘the curlew’s tear turned its edge on the silence’, tapping into the idea of it as a representative of eerie desolation.

In autumn and winter, curlews gather in flocks in coastal fields, on rocky ledges or muddy estuary edges and in those bleak, isolated landscapes their cries may assume a ghostly quality. W. B. Yeats spent part of his youth roaming the remoter parts of the Irish coast around Sligo, developing a sensitivity to bird sounds. In He Reproves The Curlew (1899), from one of his earliest collections The Wind Among The Reeds, the mournful sound of a curlew served only to amplify his suffering from romantic rejection: ‘O curlew, cry no more in the air,/Or only to the water in the West;/Because your crying brings to my mind/passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair/That was shaken out over my breast:/There is enough evil in the crying of the wind.’

William Yarrell was the first British naturalist to compile a list reporting on the status of our avian species, but his History of British Birds, published between 1837 and 1843, judiciously mixed fact and anecdote for a wider readership. He noted that in Scotland the curlew was called a ‘whaap’ or ‘whaup’. This, according to Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary, was a name for a goblin ‘supposed to go about under the eaves of houses after nightfall, with a long beak’. There is a further hint of the diabolical in a scene in Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Black Dwarf (1816), in which Hobbie Elliott, a superstitious Borders farmer, rambles the haunted Meikle-Stane-Moor, fearful of ‘o’worricours [goblins] and lang-nebitt things about the land’. He says he once heard a fairy whistling in the moss ‘as like a whaup as ae thing could be like another’.

Sinister or not, curlews are in the proud position of being one of the few species mentioned in one of the earliest known poems in domestic literature. The Seafarer was an elegy whose meaning fascinated J. R. R. Tolkien. Found in The Exeter Book, an anthology of Old English poems thought to have been compiled in the 11th century, it is now accepted to represent the thoughts of a man who has experienced the dangers and deprivations of seafaring life, yet feels a yearning to return to it. In pondering past oceanic discomforts, in contrast to the comforts of life on land, he recalls the loneliness that gnawed at his heart when all he had for company, apart from the roaring of the seas was, variously, ‘the song of the swan, the cry of the gannet and the voice of the curlew instead of the laughter of men’. Curiously, elsewhere in the poem, the cuckoo, usually seen as a bird of the summer, also features as a bird of lament, likely to bring sorrow to those who hear its call.

Sadly, curlew numbers have been declining for decades, although vulnerability has simply heightened their appeal. Mary Colwell’s book Curlew Moon (2018) was inspired by the legend of St Beuno, a 7th-century Welsh preacher whose book of sermons was blown away when his boat was caught in a storm off the Isle of Anglesey, only for the book to be retrieved for him by a helpful curlew. The author describes her 500-mile ‘pilgrimage’ from western Ireland to England’s east coast, exploring the wonder of curlews, the watching of them being ‘an inner experience, at the level of the soul, where the ordinary and the everyday become extraordinary’. A fit and functioning Leithen would have appreciated the sentiment.

This article first appeared in the April 29, 2026 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.

Murals featuring classical figures and seasonal allegories by Elizabeth Arkwright adorn the ceilings, doors and wall panels of Grade II-listed Parndon Hall, Essex, and yet, despite their historical significance and the fact that they are rare large-scale survivors from the period by a female artist, the building housing them has been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair.

The hall, situated within the Princess Alexandra Hospital campus in Harlow, is on the Victorian Society’s new Top Ten Endangered Buildings list, prompting the charity’s president Griff Rhys Jones to comment: ‘Grrr. Come on Harlow! This is a worthy building. To stick it to one side and let it rot is such a waste of a valuable resource… This could be an asset instead of derelict — and it should be.’

The hall was built in 1867 for Loftus Arkwright, great-grandson of the industrial pioneer Sir Richard Arkwright and husband of Elizabeth, who is believed to have honed her artistic skills through Sir Edwin Landseer. For a while, the hall was a distinctive family home, before it was used as a school and offices, then a training centre, library and skills facility for the nearby hospital, which saved it from demolition. It is now empty and there are no plans for its future.

The fate of Elizabeth’s bewitching paintings has been equally precarious — certain ones having been concealed beneath whitewash and paint over time; some are still covered over. The other nine Victorian and Edwardian buildings on the society’s list (with two out of the total Grade II*-listed and eight Grade II-listed) are London’s Hackney Borough Disinfecting Station (1901); the Tees Transporter Bridge, in Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham (1911); New Market Buildings, Bridgnorth, Shropshire (1855–59); the Former Strand Railway Station and Railway Men’s Club, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria (1863); Oakes School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire (1885); St Michael’s RC Cemetery Chapel, Sheffield (1898); Derby School of Art (1876, with additions in 1899); the former Library and Mechanics Institute, Devonport, Devon (1843–44); and Faenol (Vaynol) Mausoleum, in Pentir, Gwynedd, North Wales.

The architecturally significant Henry Kennedy-designed mausoleum, which has a bell tower and a hammerbeam roof, is one the rarest funerary buildings of its type in Wales. It was built in the late 1870s with French Gothic elements for the wealthy Assheton-Smith family, owners of the 36,000-acre Faenol estate, who made their fortune from slate. Still showing evidence of its glorious past, vandals and graffiti ‘artists’ have, however, damaged its walls and stained glass and left it in a vulnerable state, prompting Griff to state: ‘The tangle of ownership needs to be cut aside by a latter-day perfect gentle knight, so this sleeping beauty, this unique monument, can come back to life.’

The Victorian Society is hoping that these new Endangered Buildings listings, as with many buildings on its past lists, will be saved from their cycles of neglect through a combination of public pressure, partnership and investment. ‘They are each part of the character and quality and history that made Britain and can continue to make Britain,’ adds Griff.

This feature originally appeared in the April 29 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Your grandmother was right: going for a walk really does do you a power of good.

Just how much, though, is something that we're only just beginning to discover — a point made beautifully by the writer and researcher Annabel Streets, who joins James Fisher on this week's Country Life Podcast.

Annabel's book The Walking Cure has been hugely successful, and she spoke to us on the eve of its paperback publication. It's a hugely intriguing chat, ranging from psychological impact of getting up off the sofa to the very real difference that where you walk can make.

A walk along the sea front brings a completely different feel to a walk through the woods — and scientists are also discovering that a walk through a city, though stressful in terms of dealing with traffic, can be enormously stimulating in an entirely different way, something which new scientific techniques are beginning to show for the first time.

Annabel also talks about her own walking journeys across the world, and how they've changed her. It's a fascinating talk — and the ideal thing to listen to as you get out and about for a walk near where you live.

Annabel's book The Walking Cure is out now in paperback — see more details. Annabel Streets also writes, and posts on Instagram, as Annabel Abbs — you can follow her here.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Mark Hedges

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

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Sometimes, when a clear night sky cloaks moist ground, a magic spell is cast. As the sun rises and the dark curtain lifts, a landscape glistening with glassy droplets is revealed. ‘Every thorn-point and every bramble-spear has its trembling ornament: till the wind gets a little brisker, and then all is shaken off, and all the shining jewellery passes away into a common spring morning,’ wrote John Clare in Dewdrops, one of the many works that convey the poet’s fascination with this ephemeral phenomenon.

I share Clare’s enthusiasm. On warm days, I like to get outside early enough that the dew is still damp beneath my feet. Barefoot is best, padding around the garden until my toes begin to tingle; then back inside, the story of my feet’s miniature adventure written in a slippery trail across the kitchen floor.

Dew has mesmerised humankind for millennia. The ancient Greeks attributed the natural spectacle to the dawn goddess Eos, personifying her tears as Ersa, who poured water upon the land. Later, in ancient Rome, Pliny pondered whether dew was ‘the sweat of the heavens, or the saliva that comes from the stars, or the sap that exudes from the air when it is cleansed’. The idea that dew was astral water, trickling down to Earth via the luminous rays of the moon, stuck longest — well into the 17th century, in fact, as evidenced by engravings in the 1677 ‘wordless book’, the Mutus Liber, detailing how this nocturnal distillation might be alchemised to create powerful elixirs and dissolve gold.

Such notions of dew as Heaven-sent were also nurtured by literature. In Andrew Marvell’s metaphysical poem On a Drop of Dew, written in the 1660s, the dew, ‘shed from the bosom of the morn’ and now languishing on Earth, yearns to be reunited with the firmament. It ‘shines with a mournful light,/Like its own tear,/Because so long divided from the sphere,’ he writes. ‘Till the warm sun pity its pain,/And to the skies exhale it back again.’ By contrast, dew is the fuel for adventure in Cyrano de Bergerac’s A Voyage to the Moon (1657) and is used by the intrepid protagonist to take flight, propelling him back to dew’s imagined origin in the sky. ‘I planted my self in the middle of a great many Glasses full of Dew, tied fast about me,’ he narrates. ‘Upon which the Sun so violently darted his Rays, that the Heat, which attracted them… carried me up so high, that at length I found myself above the middle Region of the Air.’

Even scientists have been bewitched by the beauty of dew. ‘When from the bright blue vault of heaven, the sparkling constellations shower their mild light over the earth, the flowers of the garden and the leaves of the forest become moist with a fluid of the most translucid nature,’ wrote Robert Hunt, an expert in the physics and chemistry of light, in 1854’s The Poetry of Science. However, by then, our understanding of the world was changing. ‘Science has removed the veil of mystery with which superstition had invested the formation of dew,’ Hunt continued, attributing the phenomenon instead to ‘a condensation of vapour’ acting according to ‘a fixed law of radiation’ — about which more later.

I prefer the Celtic belief that dew is the footprints of fairies who have been making merry in the night. ‘And I serve the Fairy Queen/To dew her orbs upon the green,’ declares a fairy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. ‘I must go seek some dewdrops here, and hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.’ It’s dew’s delicate touch that surely suggested the work of fairies. ‘The fall of dew is the softest way in which water comes into the world; without the slightest sound, much smoother than rain or than natural fountain,’ notes the German philosopher and chemist Jens Soentgen in his 2012 Essay on Dew. In rural Germany, we learn, dew was once thought to enhance growth as a result of the astral life force within it. ‘It was the practice to add a little dew when churning butter to increase the yield,’ he writes. ‘On the other hand, if one were to steal the dew from a farmer’s field, his cows would give less milk.’

Whereas some were adding dew to their food, others — mostly women — were applying it to their faces, believing it a potent beauty tonic that could induce a youthful bloom, reduce rosacea and fade unwanted freckles. May was the optimum time to collect it. ‘They would go forth betimes in the morning, and before sun-rising, into a green field,’ the physician Gerard Boate recalled in 1652’s The Natural History of Ireland. ‘And there either with their hands strike off the dew from the tops of the herbs into a dish, or else throwing clean linnen cloaths upon the ground, take off the dew from the herbs into them and afterwards wring it out into dishes.’

The grassy heights of Edinburgh’s Arthur’s Seat were once a focal point for the most fervent dew-gatherers, who thronged in their thousands. Today, May Day still sees a handful of walkers ascend its summit to wet their faces. Over the years, various health-giving properties have also been ascribed to dew. People dabbed it on their eyes to relieve soreness, ingested it to rebalance emotional energy, and, according to 1593’s A Short Treatise of the Small Pockes, used it to treat ‘rednes of the face and hands after the pockes are gone’. Others, Oliver Cromwell among them, slipped off their stockings to walk on it in the hope of curing gout.

Harvesting dew from a dawn landscape may require patience, but capturing the visual effect on canvas is a feat of genius. Millais feared that such a scene ‘might be unpaintable’, but persevered nevertheless. The result was the atmospheric Dew-Drenched Furze (1889–90), a triumph of humid undergrowth bathed in gossamer light, achieved by virtue of generously applied paint and delicate dry brushing. A century earlier, Constable had achieved the ‘unpaintable’ optical effect seemingly by accident. ‘Look at these landscapes by an Englishman; the ground appears to be covered with dew,’ a visitor to the Paris Salon of 1824 was overheard saying of The Hay Wain — an astonishing achievement for a painting originally titled 'Landscape: Noon'. By contrast, Turner’s Dewy Morning of about 1810, a view of Petworth House in West Sussex from across the lake, was intentionally dewy, although there’s not a single droplet to be seen. Instead, the dew is suggested by the misty veil over the verdant landscape.

It’s perhaps dew’s transience that makes it such a rare and precious subject in paint. ‘But soon shall fly those diamond drops,/The red round sun advances higher,’ announces Clare in his poem Summer Morning. ‘Now let me tread the meadow paths/While glittering dew the ground illumes,’ he entreats. ‘As, sprinkled o’er the withering swaths,/Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes.’ I’d like to think that Clare did this shoeless, as I do. What better excuse than dew’s brevity for splashing it on our faces and feet?

On Brownsea Island near Poole, Dorset, a ripple of amber flashes through the canopy. Although the charismatic red squirrel’s bright orange coat is unmistakable, sightings are unusual: once widespread throughout the country, Sciurus vulgaris is now extremely rare. Safe and secure on its island stronghold, Brownsea’s population is thriving — but, elsewhere, numbers have been devastated: today there are only about 287,000 in the UK, compared with 2.7 million of Sciurus carolinensis, its ubiquitous grey cousin.

Our relationship with red squirrels burrows deep into the past. Their constant scurrying up and down trees has led them to be framed in folklore as messengers between the physical and spiritual world. In Scandinavian mythology, the Norse god Ratatoskr was a playful squirrel that carried messages and insults along the Tree of Life between the wise eagle at the top and the serpent within its roots; in medieval times, they were often kept as pets, especially in monasteries where their quiet watchfulness aligned well with the contemplative life. Sometimes depicted in illuminated manuscripts, the squirrels are seen nestling in robes and perched on desks and fed by hand.

Although it is this closeness that is now believed to have caused the transmission of leprosy between humans and squirrels, and vice versa, squirrels were still popular companions in 1527, when Hans Holbein the Younger painted a portrait of Anne Lovell with a gleaming-eyed squirrel on her lap. Many centuries later, in 1903, Beatrix Potter published The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, inspired by the creatures around Derwentwater in the Lake District. Nutkin, the mischievous protagonist, who loses his tail after an encounter with the owl, has provided us with a lasting image of cheeky defiance.

Red squirrels first arrived in Britain at the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago and, until the late 1800s, they could be seen bustling around broadleaf woodlands. Their sudden disappearance was due partly to the loss of suitable forests, but mostly to the introduction of grey squirrels as exotic additions to country estates.

The first recorded release took place at Henbury Park in Cheshire in 1876, with subsequent introductions at Woburn Park in Bedfordshire and Richmond Park and Regent’s Park in London. The landowners assumed the animals would keep within their parks. However, the grey squirrels had plans of their own and soon started to move into the surrounding countryside, spreading at a rate of a mile a year. Their impact on the native red squirrels was disastrous.

Larger and more robust, they were able to eat a wider range of foods (greys can digest green acorns; reds must wait for them to ripen) and, worst of all, they carried a disease, squirrel pox, to which the greys are immune, but which is often deadly to the reds. Finally, as red squirrels were put under increasing pressure, they bred less often, further reducing the size of the population until they were forced to retreat to more remote coniferous locations.

Despite all of this, the red squirrel is staging a cautious comeback. In Cumbria in 2025, there was a record number of sightings, up 24% on the previous year, and, in Scotland, red squirrels have expanded their range across the Highlands by 25%, thanks in part to the work of the rewilding charity Trees for Life.

Most exciting of all is the discovery of a rare colony of red squirrels living in a Sitka spruce plantation in the Yorkshire Dales, which is protected on all sides from the greys. The animals were first identified a year ago by Julie Bailey, project officer from the UK Squirrel Accord, using thermal imaging and, since then, conservationists have been working to protect the colony. ‘I’m very encouraged by their persistence and breeding success,’ reports Julie. ‘We’re finding squirrels in all directions from the plantation and within seven miles of the border with West Yorkshire.’

In Scotland, the reintroduction of pine martens, which like to predate the meatier and slower-moving grey, is also giving red squirrels an opportunity to recover. In one scheme, dens have been installed along the A9 corridor in the hope of attracting pine martens, which can act as bouncers to halt the march of the greys.

Elsewhere, island populations of red squirrels continue to increase. On the Isle of Wight, which is believed to contain the remnants of the original British red squirrel population, there are an estimated 3,000. Brownsea Island has 250, Anglesey has between 700 and 800 and Mersea Island in Essex supports between 50 and 100 animals, which make up the only wild red squirrel colony in the South-East.

The best time to spot the red squirrel’s tufty ears and signature question-mark tail is in the morning or late afternoon in the spring or autumn, when falling seed fragments and rustling overhead can indicate the mammals’ proximity. Evidence may also be found on the tops of tree stumps, where shredded pine cones can be studied to see whether a squirrel is left- or right-handed — pine seeds are a favourite food, but they will also eat hazelnuts, ripe acorns and fungi, which are hung out to dry in a fungal larder.

Fur colour varies from vivid ginger to dark brown. Occasionally, you might spot a black squirrel: a melanistic form of the grey species, which escaped from a private zoo in the 1900s. As a native species, the red squirrel has an important role to play in woodland ecology. Hoarding, burying and forgetting, they help disperse seeds and mycorrhizal fungi and their presence helps mitigate damage caused by the bark-stripping greys. ‘Red squirrels are builders of woods,’ notes Julie. ‘They are resilient and, given the right habitat, I believe they can bounce back.’

Britain’s inaugural Save Our Reds Day takes place on May 15

This feature originally appeared in the April 22, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man,’ forewarned the economist The Revd Thomas Malthus in 1798. His observation did not go down well with either the Communist thinker Karl Marx or with captains of industry. However, we are still here on Earth, albeit struggling for sustainability in a far busier world.

As arguments rage today about the despoliation of the British countryside by development in the name of economic survival, so the 19th-century figures Wordsworth and Ruskin fumed about the spread of mining (now defunct and provider of tourist attractions) and the first railway lines (now deemed ‘heritage’ and treasured). At the time, these brought much-needed employment and connectivity, yet created what opinion-makers perceived as jarring interruptions to uncluttered landscapes.

Formal opposition to unsuitable development came during the middle and end of the Victorian era (with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the National Trust) and then in the depressed aftermaths of the First and Second World Wars. By 1936, a Times leader suggested that the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), by now 10 years old, should be credited with the notion that ‘the beauty of rural England has a commercial value’. This wasn’t a new idea — the 18th-century travel writer William Gilpin realised Britain’s huge tourism potential — but it had been submerged in an atmosphere of postwar deprivation. Many of the CPRE’s initial concerns remain 100 years on, depressingly unsolved or worse: litter, badly constructed housing, industrial ugliness, hideous signage, pollution, contaminated water.

The historian W. G. Hoskins wrote in his seminal The Making of the English Landscape (1954) that ‘since the year 1914… every single change in the English landscape has either uglified it or destroyed its meaning’. Hoskins is quoted in the CPRE’s centenary publication, Future Rural, by Dame Fiona Reynolds, a former leader of the conservation charity and author of The Fight for Beauty. She suggests that the countryside, which needs far more understanding representation and flexible policy making from Westminster, is at a precarious crossroads: it can either become submerged by ‘characterless suburbanisation’ with ‘a few wildlife-rich islands’ or it could be a biodiversity-rich, farmed landscape populated by vibrant communities. The nation has become ‘countryside blind’ amid a governmental desire to build at all cost.

In the same book, Sir Michael Morpurgo, founder of Farms for City Children 50 years ago, contends that the word ‘protection’ implies ‘siege mentality’ when what is needed is ‘for town and country to understand one another better’. This is not to say that campaigners should ever give up on preserving beauty, but that it reflects the dilemma of tempering creditable and uplifting ambition with pragmatism and 21st-century knowledge.

This article first appeared in the April 22 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.

There is awesomeness in scale. The Earth is a big place, with lots of people, places, animals and things on it, but our experience of it can only ever be described as small. Even though you know there are 8 billion other people, and 7.7 million species of animals, those numbers have no real meaning because they are so vast. All I know about 8 billion people is that they must make quite a lot of mess, and on this fragile planet, that can feel overwhelming.

This is apparently known as eco-anxiety. It hits me when I try my best to clean up a yoghurt pot for recycling, or have to dispose of a plastic film lid. Multiply my waste times 8 billion, and that’s quite a lot of plastic film lids. It can all feel a bit pointless; swimming against an inevitable tide of carelessness. I am doing my best, but is my best good enough? Will it make an impact?

There is some comfort in knowing that I am not the only person who feels this way. If I can despair over recycling in Bermondsey, what must those who work on the front lines of conservation feel when face-to-face with rising temperatures, oceans of plastic, wildlife persecution, disappearing forests and habitat destruction? As Victor Glover, pilot of Artemis II, correctly pointed out, ‘we live on a fragile planet in the vacuum and the void of space’. The Earth might be big, but that does not mean it is indestructible.

While it might be easy to despair, that does not mean it is necessary. ‘Our purpose on the planet as humans is to find joy, to find the joy in lifting each other up by creating solutions together instead of destroying,’ Glover added. ‘When you see it from out here, it doesn’t change it. It just absolutely reaffirms that. It’s almost like seeing living proof of it.’

Those who spend their lives in nature are thankfully more positive than me. Despite being privy to the destruction and loss of what once was, many have found hope in a wild encounter. This Earth Day, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has asked staff, researchers and partners to share these experiences in nature — stories of luck, awe and renewed purpose — to remind us that no matter how helpless we feel, how anxious we might be, it is worth making the effort. The WWF has been kind enough to highlight these stories, which we’ve shared below, to remind us that while the Earth might be a big place, it's the little things that make it feel like home, and a home worth fighting for.

My first wild sighting of a snow leopard was in Shey Phoksundo National Park (SPNP) in western Nepal. The animal walked calmly along the mountain slope that rose steeply upward of our camp, that evening, traversing between us and our horses and yaks grazing in the slope. All eyes — humans and animals — were on the snow leopard as it walked gracefully up to the nearby ridge, positioned itself to mark its territory, and finally disappeared into the mountains.

This event epitomized our vision for me: snow leopards and people living in harmony. Yet this romanticism was short-lived. A few days later, during this trip, I saw the challenges that lay before us. I observed resilience and exceptional patience of local communities losing livestock, but also frustrations and anger reaching breaking point. I sensed their desperation and the reality of retaliatory killings of snow leopards, in absence of support during their times of need…

Our world is interconnected, and our futures are closely linked. The fates of flagships such as snow leopards are an indicator to the fate of people — our friends and families. The optimist in me knows the future can be bright for people and snow leopards, but the realist in me knows we need greater awareness of what we stand to lose if we don’t take action together.

Sheren Shrestha, Lead – Snow Leopard Program, WWF

My first time seeing an elephant I was a little scared. But the longer I’ve worked with them, the more confidence I’ve gained, and now I can move closer because I understand them. I’ve developed a liking and a love for them. The Maasai even call me the elephant man!

Professor Noah Sitati, Wildlife Species Expert, WWF Tanzania.

It took me 20 years to lay eyes on a wild tiger. In my career, I’ve spent weeks deep in tiger territory without ever spotting any stripes, but I broke that spell in early 2020 when a young male emerged from the tall grass to quench its thirst. It was a dream come true for me, a moment that filled me with renewed enthusiasm, awe, and a deep sense of luck.

Kanchan Thapa, Conservation Biologist, Tigers, WWF-Nepal

I was very excited, the first time I saw them; a rhino is not an easy animal to see! I’m always happy every time I see them, just looking at their size, and their horn. But it’s so easy to feel sad for them. Sometimes the horn can be removed to deter poachers, but without a horn it’s just not a rhino anymore.

Professor Noah Sitati, Wildlife Species Expert, WWF-Tanzania.

The first time I saw penguins I did not realise what I was looking at. I was on a dinghy boat, moving across the Baie du Marin in Possession Island, the main island of Crozet archipelago in the French subantarctic territory. I was about to overwinter as a young scientist for 16 months on this island.

As the dinghy was sailing towards the beach I came to realize that the whitish-greyish pebbles that were in front of me were in fact thousands and thousands of penguins in the distance. I had never seen such a concentration of wild animals. I was watching in awe as the noise and smell superimposed on the scenery! This was so intense…. My overwintering time with penguins was determinant in guiding my career; I left the island knowing what I would do in the future: continue to investigate penguins at sea to help establishing conservation approaches, especially Marine Protected Areas.

Yan Ropert-Coudert, Director of Research CNRS – Marine Predators team.