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Look skyward in sadness

7 June 2017 by Simon Barnes 11 Comments

I’m worried about swallows. There don’t seem to be enough of them this year. Perhaps I’ve been unlucky. Or perhaps they have. I look at the sky and I fret. Not many swifts either. Of course, they might just be dodging the dodgy weather with a side-trip to the Bay of Biscay…

If you like wild stuff you condemn yourself to a certain amount of fretting. There aren’t enough of them, they’re arriving too late, or too early, they’re too quiet, the dry weather will harm them, or perhaps the wet weather, or the heat, or the cold.

If you learn how to look at a landscape correctly, you can see at a glance how much is no longer there. Almost, it’s as if by loving wildlife you are wilfully bringing sadness into your life.

My mother used to say that to acquiring a pet was an investment in sadness. That didn’t stop her acquiring dogs and loving them. And besides, what she said about pets is true on a much wider field: if you love anything that lives, you will have sadness in your life.

That’s the deal. Most of us accept it. We love, knowing that love will bring sadness. That’s because we also know that living without loving is not life.

But that shouldn’t really be true of the wild world, should it? If we form an attachment to wild individuals, sure, they’re likely to predecease us — but an attachment to the wild world itself really should be safe enough.

It isn’t of course. To love the wild is to accept sadness as an inevitable part of your own existence. That’s because we keep losing stuff: not as part of the eternal round of birth and copulation and death but to the lumbering juggernaut of destruction. The wild world no longer replenishes as used to.

I look at the sky for swallows, I look in vain, and I feel the pain of sadness. And well — if that’s the price you have to pay for loving wildlife, I embrace it willingly.

Here’s Eddie’s blog: 30 days wild5

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Posted in Wildblog

Comments

  1. Dan says

    7 June 2017 at 9:31 pm

    I agree. It took me an age to see a swallow this year. I was even mocked for my lack of sightings. Loved reading Eddie’s blog as well.

    Reply
  2. Pam Shortis says

    7 June 2017 at 10:17 pm

    I’ve seen 4, perhaps 5 swallows this year. No screaming swifts, no house martins. I’m getting on in life and I do wonder if I’ll now ever see the massing of twittering flocks of years past. The returning swallow was always a symbol of an ongoing relationship that we had with the natural world – a norm. Alas the norm is normal no longer; it’s a changing world with which we will apparently have to adapt- if indeed that’s possible.

    Reply
  3. Andy says

    7 June 2017 at 10:40 pm

    Lovely post. I agree about the apparent decline of swallows (and martens and swifts) too. I’m not that old but remember well, as a child, only 30 years ago, there seemed to be so many more. Such a quick decline is sad and frightening. I’ve heard that swifts are surprisingly long lived. Such a change in one bird’s lifetime!

    Your blog is excellent: among the very best of the many nature blogs out there. Thank you.

    Reply
  4. Rod Bleach says

    8 June 2017 at 8:51 am

    How achingly true. Sometimes I envy my friends who only seem to worry about the fate of their football team (I worry about mine too but….). My favourite team however is British wildlife (i have the shirt) and the defence is looking decidedly shakey these days. I worry about the impending change of management. Whilst football teams are opting for continental managers, the UK farmed environment is going back to the home-grown variety – do they have the will, the skill and the knowledge to halt the decline and turn things around? – hmmmmm.

    Reply
  5. Michael John Clark says

    8 June 2017 at 10:18 am

    A wonderful insight into transient beauty and sadness. Unfortunately I have been a little hampered by injury and haven’t heard a cuckoo this year and seen few swallows but we have our resident swifts in our roof cavity as we have for many years now. Tell Eddie to keep on blogging. I just love it, as Kevin Keegan might have said!

    Reply
  6. Anthony Bird says

    8 June 2017 at 11:32 am

    Yes, lots of sadness due to loss of birds which makes those that we do see and hear all the more pleasurable, let us hope that eddy is right and those large trees are enough to protect the nestlings.

    Reply
  7. Delphine Spilsbury says

    8 June 2017 at 12:00 pm

    Eddies blog gives me hope and makes me smile – which is badly needed today of all days. On my daily walks across cliff paths at Ramsgate the sky larks, which have been constant companions over 10 years – haven’t appeared this year – or rather one solitary little fellow did for a bit. And then the Curlews – I used to hear their call while walking in Pegwell Bay – but not recently – not since the new pipeline construction tore up the lagoon The sign from the construction (or destruction) company reads – “working with nature”. Someone has added “Unless it gets in our way”.

    Reply
    • jaybeemcBrian says

      9 June 2017 at 3:40 pm

      did like this comment! Thank you.

      Reply
  8. George Louis says

    8 June 2017 at 3:53 pm

    Yes that’s my impression too, fewer numbers and it hurts, trying to find ways to support what’s left of our wild world.

    Reply
  9. jaybeemcBrian says

    9 June 2017 at 3:42 pm

    Interesting comments about the lack of swallows; it’s the same here in E.Lothian, Scotland, UK, but I#’d just hoped they’d stil be arriving soon..
    Greatly enjoy reading Eddie’s blog. Also looks good with that yellow background.

    Reply
  10. Ilona says

    17 June 2017 at 8:00 am

    We wait and wait but still no swallows. There’s been a steady decline in numbers but once we had nests in the garage, outhouses and barn. We’ve missed the glad feeling when they arrive. Another empty space in the day to day….

    Reply

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