Inevitability

In very cold or snowy weather, the birds that suffer the most are the insect eaters, like wrens or treecreepers. Without their food source, they perish.   Many of you will have direct experience of this hard British winter. Here where I live we had deep snow for over a month and bitter temperatures, and local ornithologists have been very concerned about the welfare of some of our most vulnerable birds.

More snow is forecast for today, but as I write I see a family of treecreepers happily scrambling around the oak trees opposite my window. They are in many parts of my garden, more than I have ever noticed before; wrens too are everywhere, in the dry stone walls and in the reeds, anywhere insects may be found.

The fortitude of these vulnerable creatures is amazing.  They are one part of the hierarchy of nature, and their survival is confirmation of the resilience of nature as a whole.  If in principle we allow nature to take its course, without trying to change it (whether with good intent or otherwise), to find its own balance,  everyone and everything would benefit. This will happen.