We were there to see the birds, but also to talk through the big picture – the major issues facing curlews - so that we could concentrate into bullet-points the top priorities for the Curlew Recovery Partnership England. There were no surprises: forestry, agricultural practices, climate change, recreational pressure and dog-walking, urban development, and, of course, predation.  All of them are immensely complex issues in a small and crowded country, and all of them create tension and division, but none more so than the role of predators.  Predation takes a huge toll on ground nesting waders of all species, but curlews seem to fare the worst. We had seen it for ourselves just that morning.

Not far away we had accompanied Ellie Rivers, a PhD student studying the breeding curlews in the New Forest, and Dr Mike Short from the GWCT, to check on a curlew nest which represented a second attempt at breeding after the first was predated soon after laying. We stood a little distance away as Mike quietly approached the scrape, which was hidden from sight in the vegetation. We knew the signs weren’t good. There was no calling, no angry parents whirling and barking at us from above, not one sign of agitation - just a quietness where there should have been energy. And so it proved to be – the nest was empty. The camera-trap footage showed the reason, a fox had arrived in the dead of night and all the eggs were gone. It was the same story for the other four nests in this open area. Ellie was crest-fallen and visibly upset.

On the walk back to the car she talked about the strain of seeing nest after nest fail, how, as a scientist, she had to concentrate on the data and try to remain emotionally detached, but just how difficult that was. The sheer emotional attrition gets to you, wears you down to your core. Living with loss is the lot of curlew researchers and fieldworkers. She and Mike told us about a particularly distressing event. They had gone into a curlew territory to check on a pair that were guarding some chicks just as a fox was picking them off. The parents were hysterical, calling and mobbing, but it made no difference, and the fox left with a mouthful of young curlews. The parent birds then flew around for a while looking agitated and confused, and eventually settled on a mound. They stood close together and the male let out a long wail, a sound which neither Ellie or Mike had heard before. It is rare to see an event like this as it happens, even rarer to see the immediate aftermath. We know from the Shropshire Curlew Cam, which allows us a privileged look at a nest over the four weeks of incubation, just how dedicated the birds are and what vigilant, tender parents they can be.  “Maybe it is anthropomorphic to say those curlews were deeply distressed, but that is exactly what it looked like. And why wouldn’t they be? They are sentient creatures,” said Ellie. Mike used the term ‘harrowing’. Both said how hard it was to witness.

Britain has the highest density of foxes and crows in Europe, but the reasons why are not fully understood. Changes in land-use and an abundance of food in both cities and rural areas (urban feeding, countryside littering as well as the left-overs from farming) are certainly factors, maybe also high numbers of game bird releases, road kill and warmer winters, there are many possible factors at play. These will vary in importance from place to place, but the fact is, we have a lot of generalist predators across our landscapes.

The relentless decline of curlews across their range (particularly in lowland areas), and the enormous forces that are stacked up against them, seems to present a terminal scenario. Even though the New Forest has many officially designated sites for nature protection, such as Special Areas for Conservation (SACs) Special Protection Areas (SPAs), Special Sites of Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and RAMSAR sites (protected wetland areas), they are not enough in themselves to solve the problems for wildlife. People play a decisive role, and in the New Forest, it is complicated. The ancient balance of interest, largely between the landowners (mainly the Crown) and the commoners within the Verderers’ Court, now includes the National Park Authority, Natural England, Forestry England, National Trust, DEFRA, Hants Country Council, dog walkers and tourism interests; all are vying for their share of control. The centuries old landscapes of woodland and open heaths have to be something for everyone, and not everyone tolerates predator control, even the potential erection of electric fences causes controversy. Somehow, curlews try to find the space and the peace to live their lives in this contested and complex landscape. Despite the attention and care of many good people in the area, they are failing to thrive. They are caught in the midst of a range of environmental pressures and human agendas, including the fear of facing head-on the issue of high numbers of generalist predators.

If curlews are to continue to be a part of the suite of New Forest wildlife, reducing the number of creatures that eat them has to be one of a range of options we can deploy, yet it is a subject few will talk about openly. But talk about it we must, and face the facts we must, and then, collectively, make some hard decisions. Simply hoping all will be well and that nature will sort itself out, is not good enough. To save a bird in such steep decline that local extinctions are now a real possibility, leaving them to fate is not an option.  We say we are a nation of nature lovers, well, true love never comes alone. Love is always accompanied by responsibility, sacrifice and, at times, painful decision making. We know that from our own lives and relationships, and our relationship with nature is no different. I’m not sure we have grasped that reality for wildlife yet – what exactly ‘love of nature’ actually means - but we are running out of time for the precious bird that is the Eurasian Curlew.

Amazon

The Amazon is burning. The images sear into our hearts as we watch millions of years of wondrous forest succumb to flames, fanned by greed and political ambition. Within the inferno countless millions of unique life forms are being destroyed - monkeys, birds, reptiles, insects and plant life are no more, and the flames surge ever onwards.

This great forest, 55 million square kilometres, regulates the world’s climate, produces one third of the fresh water entering the oceans and is a living, breathing temple to diversity and beauty. Many have already fought and died to protect the trees, the creatures of the rainforest and the peoples who live there.

The Amazon needs us now, starting today, to kneel and pray for its protection and then to stand up and protest at its destruction. The forest relies on us to demand that justice is done. Now is the time for the Catholic Church, which has an immense influence over the whole Amazonian basin, to extend a hand to politicians, local peoples and conservationists and together square up to the powers that are destroying our planet. It must be done with urgency because the actual survival of the Amazon is at stake. It depends more than ever on a formidable alliance between people with a passion to save the earth and a worldwide, powerful and compassionate religion.

“The sky is angry and is crying because we are destroying the planet,” said Pope Francis when he visited the Amazon last year. We are all weeping with anger, fears and helplessness. Forces are acting today that see nothing but financial gain from this sparkling blue planet we are privileged to call home. Every single one of us has a moral duty to act and hold truth to power, to project the image of a destroyed rainforest to every corner of the earth and decry the forces that have brought us to this.

Pope Francis called the Amazon rainforest, ‘the heart of the church.” Within the smoking ruins of a once holy temple to God’s grandeur, let our prayers rise up with the smoke and mingle with the ash. Hope is found in the deepest, darkest hours and we are living through that right now.

HOPE

I watched a chiffchaff bathing in my garden, it splashed tentatively in the late summer sun, always on guard. Mainly olive green with a beautiful, subdued yellow eye stripe, it added a touch of the exotic to the normal urban gang of blue and great tits. It must have been on passage south, its breeding season at an end, and I felt privileged it had chosen my garden as a pit-stop. I could easily fit this tiny bird into the palm of my hand - it is feather-lite, weighing the same as a two pence piece. 

So small, so slender, it looks as though a gust of wind might damage its lovely body. Yet, it is tiny bundle of resilience, reminding us that not everything that is strong and fit for purpose is obviously robust. As it journeys to its wintering grounds, I hope the autumn storms blow it on its way, that the wild seas are crossed with ease and that the predators are already satiated when it flies nearby. I also pray that the Mediterranean hunters put down their guns and dismantle their cruel traps and that they bow in respect to this marvel of God.

The chiffchaff is shifting its migration in response to a changing climate. More of them now stay in the south of England in the winter rather than heading out for Europe or Africa. Even more resilience from this diminutive miracle.

 “Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul” said Emily Dickinson, and so it is. I will be so full of joy when its rhythmic chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff once again fills the spring air. It is tiny feathered prayer, surviving and adapting to a changing planet.

INTEGRITY

Integrity is the treasure buried in the field, it is a life well-lived and carried out with inner wholeness.  It is obvious to all of us at this moment in history that the film dividing fact and fiction, hubris and humility is paper thin - at times it is barely discernible – and so more than ever we need to find daily integrity. It is there of course, all around us. A flower, a bird, a tree cannot be other than entire in and of themselves and assured in their purpose. A robin or a fox cannot be other than what they are, they are incorruptible and incapable of being false. It is not possible for the natural world to break our trust.  

The season of Creationtide is perfectly timed. Autumn sees immense transition in nature. The change of guard from blousy flowers to dying leaves, from warmth to chill, has inspired the greatest artists to creative thoughts on our own life span. The season of mellow fruitfulness is almost to cliched to quote, yet we know the meaning of that phrase is heavy with reference to our own experiences. Nature creates in vision a commentary on our deepest understandings and fears. And it also relates those inner thoughts to God. 

For, like a grain of fire

Smouldering in the heart

Of every living essence

God plants His undivided power –

Buries His thought too vast

For worlds

In seeds and roots and blade

And flower.

The Sowing of Meanings – Thomas Merton

 Seeds and flowers, roots and blades are what they are, they live good lives in harmony with a whirling planet that processes around a burning star. We have much to learn from nature about the trajectory of our own lives through quiet, autumnal contemplation.

POWER

I was in a wild night of storms a while ago, in the High Sierras in California. I was camping in a small tent and could hear the wind raging down the valley, heading straight for me. The roar was so loud I clasped my hands over my ears; it sounded like a train. When it hit, everything shook and strained. The tent pegs and the rocks I’d placed on them shifted. The thin fabric of the tent looked set to tear. All I could do was curl up and pray as rain battered my shelter. If my tent had failed, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I was alone and at least a day’s walk from any settlement. Sometimes the power of the planet is scary, terrifying even.

That pure energy whipping around the surface of the globe is nothing more than excited air, increasingly agitated by the difference in temperature between the day and the night as we head for the coldness of the winter ahead. Invisible yet dynamic, storms are the manifestation of the power of things unseen. They can be violent and destructive, or merely teasing and playful, but storms are a signature of the start of the change to winter.

People have long been in awe of the ability of tempests to quell even the most dominant human force. The bible tells many a story of God providing shelter and protection from storms, an image that must have been so comforting in lands that can experience extreme weather.

My tent did survive, I got home safely to love and security. For many people in the Bahamas this year, things did not turn out so well. Hurricane Dorian took away their things, their security, even lives. It is good to remember and pray for those who stand in the path of the planet’s power and for the strength to build their lives once again. And we have to understand that the loss and grief caused by Dorian is yet another sign that climate change is not gradual transition to another reality but a dramatic change in state.

This blog is taken from a letter I wrote to all those involved in the National Justice and Peace Network, a collection of fine and caring people who work for justice and peace projects in the different diocese throughout England and Wales. Environmental issues come under their jurisdiction but as far as I am aware they were not involved in the setting up of the newly formed environment committee for the Bishops’ Conference.

Dear NJP

The statement on the environment is very welcome and I applaud the bishops for their commitment to produce a fuller one later in the year. It is, therefore, timely to add your voice to this issue. As the National Justice and Peace Commission you represent the justice and peace initiatives of the bishops’ conference and have to be involved. I trust the bishops and the newly formed environmental committee will consult you all.

The first thing that struck me about this short statement is the tired phrase, Stewardship of Creation. Immediately it brings to mind a notion of hierarchy and management.

The Cambridge English Dictionary give this definition of stewardship:

Someone's stewardship of something is the way in which that person controls or organises it: The company has been very successful while it has been under the stewardship of Mr White

The Oxford Dictionary is similar:

The job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property: ‘the funding and stewardship of the NHS’ or ‘responsible stewardship of our public lands’

 In my opinion this is the wrong message delivered in the wrong language. I have no idea where ‘stewardship of creation’ comes from, it is not biblical, but it has been around for a long time. Stewardship is not a good word. There is no heart, no humility, no love in it. We are certainly not in control. We are not shop stewards of a factory floor, we are co-inhabitants of an astonishing planet that challenges and nurtures us and provides us with resources and wonderment. The earth and all its life forms are the source of our creativity and daily joy. We are not in charge of this planet, but we have a profound and holy responsibility towards it.

 The statement then goes on to recognise “an unprecedented ecological crisis,” which I hope embraces not only climate change but also the extinction of species. Yet again, however, the phrasing is cold and arm-wavy. I personally don’t like the use of the word ‘ecological’. Ecology is a field of study, like biology, theology, geology. We wouldn’t say there is a biological crisis on earth, but there is certainly an environmental one. I do know that this phrase has slipped into common vernacular but it lacks a depth of understanding that comes from pondering and contemplation on the real meaning behind words.

 Why am I being picky about language? Because language matters and words matter. We are acutely aware of the language people use. When the church says it is a steward or talks about ecology, that sets the tone for the discussion.

 It is also lazy thinking. Simply presenting phrases someone else devised a long time ago gives the impression that this is the sum of things, that this phrase is the best way of expressing the situation and that nothing has moved on. Clichés are detrimental to progress. They are superficial and simply graze the surface, they bring no fresh thoughts or ideas. This is a great shame. We are in unprecedented times and we need a new language that expresses that urgency. Words matter. Expressed well, they bare our uncertainty and pain, desire and weakness, acceptance and humility. We can do well to learn from Greta Thunberg’s eloquence and authenticity.

 “It is still not too late to act. It will take a far-reaching vision, it will take courage, it will take fierce, fierce determination to act now, to lay the foundations where we may not know all the details about how to shape the ceiling. In other words, it will take cathedral thinking. I ask you to please wake up and make change possible.”

And, yet again, David Attenborough strikes the perfect tone. He is a consummate and emotional storyteller who engages the heart as well as the mind. “We need”, he said, “to fall in love again with the earth.” Words matter.

It is true that everyone is both a storyteller and a lover of stories, it is how we communicate what is important to us. “Stories are just data with a soul” said the inspirational psychologist Brené Brown. Yes, indeed they are. Allow me to tell you one story about a visit I made recently to a nature reserve in Yorkshire.

 The Lower Derwent Valley is a National Nature Reserve, an area of open grassland that floods in the winter and dries out in the summer months and provides soft soils, worms and insects for all kinds of life. The wetness of the soil has, so far, saved it from intensive agriculture and conurbation, although both of these press in all around. A hundred new houses are being built nearby and already the site is under increased pressure from dog walkers, light pollution and noise. On this calm spring morning, though, it was beautiful. A whitethroat sang in the bushes and sedge warblers were remarkably prominent as they caught insects for their young that were hidden somewhere in the low shrubs. My favourite sound, the bubbling soul-cry of the curlew, rang out in the distance.

 I sat in a hide with the ranger and we watched 30 whimbrels feeding in long grass about 200 metres away. They are fabulous long-distance migrants that spend the winter in West Africa and breed in Iceland. Their average round trip is 16,000 miles and the fields of the reserve are a stop-over site, or avian service station, that provides food and safe refuge while they gain strength for the final leg of their journey. The birds used to feed in a wider area, in the agricultural land surrounding the reserve, but the continued drainage, intensification and development of the land, as well as increasingly dry weather, has made this very difficult. If this reserve were ever to be requisitioned, the birds would die. It was so sobering - this group of beautiful, tough, long distance travellers are now totally reliant on a couple of fields in a nature reserve in Yorkshire to survive. “You can set your calendar on the day they arrive, 99% of the time on April 19th, its incredible how they time things,” said the ranger “but it also shows their vulnerability. They have to come here, there is nowhere else left.”   

The whimbrels had just flown in from west Africa where they spend the winter months. That part of the continent has seen a 5-fold increase in the human population level since 1950. Back then there were 73 million people but this is projected to exceed 1 billion by 2060. It is the fastest growing region in the world, and 40% of the population is Christian. It is also true that Africa is the future heartland of Catholicism. The number of baptized Catholics on the continent is growing at a significantly faster rate than anywhere else in the world.

 What then for the whimbrels? They face increasing pressures from the spread of agriculture and development on their African wintering grounds, an increase in intensive agriculture and urbanisation in Yorkshire and accelerating climate change affecting their arctic breeding grounds in Iceland. All of these are related to the huge and embarrassing elephants in the room – population increase and rampant consumption, including a diet rich in meat and dairy. All of these difficult issues have to be addressed directly and honestly if any progress is to be made, but I wonder if there is the courage and conviction to do so. It will be painful to tease out what the Church can contribute, but there is no doubt that it has a lot to offer if it squarely faces the challenge.

 Whimbrels, godwits, terns, ducks and geese, to name but a few world travellers, use the whole planet to live out their wild lives, they don’t inhabit just one place. They tie the world together in great migratory flights and we are privileged to host them for just a few short weeks. The responsibility on us is huge. They are telling us an important story.

I hope the bishops’ environmental committee recognises that nothing is seen in isolation, that England and Wales are not isolated from the rest of the world. A whimbrel may not be on the bishops’ radar, but all wildlife tells us about the state of the planet. According to the devastating UN biodiversity report published on May 6th, we are in danger of losing 1 million species because of the way we are using the earth, especially for farming.  We depend on the intricate web of life to keep ecosystems functioning to provide us with pollinators, fresh water, clean air and rich soils - to name but a few essential ‘services’. It is also a terrible tragedy because we are losing the wellspring for so much that makes us human. Not to mention the fact that other life on earth has a right to exist too.

Catholicism is a global religion and in a prime position to address these global concerns. Arm waving statements about an ecological crisis and saving creation only go so far. The Church has 2000 years of truly beautiful and poetic wisdom to draw upon. It has profound insights into the meaning of human and other life on earth. It has the words of inspiring environmental writers like Thomas Merton and Thomas Berry. I hope that these will be drawn out in the summer environment paper. Now, more than ever, we need to be moved to action. We live on a planet that is connected by a web of life upon which we all depend, but there is little in the statement so far that even comes close to recognising this. However, we wait to see, and I wish the authors the very greatest of blessings as they write.

This image was a favourite of Aubrey’s. Big Foot - Homo magno pedites – made by a company in Bristol called Cod Steaks. It has stood in various locations around the country, including outside the Natural History Museums of both London and Oxford. As you can see, it is a large human figure that is squashing the earth out of shape. It is deformed, tearing it apart by its sheer weight. Oil is leaking into the oceans, landscapes are flattened and wildlife is trampled. The outsize figure has the air or someone not too concerned, the pose looks like he is removing annoying debris from the soles of his feet. He, I assume a he, looks down with not a great deal of concern, perhaps a little curious? The sculptor has chosen not to make the figure gross, bloated or ugly, this is a finely proportioned figure - fit, well-fed and young. The overall impression is that the life is being squashed out of the earth by someone who doesn’t really understand what they are doing. Look more carefully and you’ll see that Big Foot is made of lots of small metal babies, forming the lattice work of the body. It is a striking piece of art and I wanted to get to know it better, to understand why it appealed so much to Aubrey. If you’d asked me to pick something that Aubrey would have liked, it probably wouldn’t have been this.  To understand it I wanted to try to get into Aubrey’s heart and mind. I have though a lot about it over the last few weeks. It has to do, of course, with population. Aubrey understood, with a sense of real pain, that the mass of humanity is damaging the world he loved so much.

I admit I was quite shocked when I first saw it. Despite being a skilled piece of art it’s not a pleasant message. It’s complex and a little accusatory. And if one thing I know - all of us in this room know – Aubrey loved people. He really did. Everyone fascinated him, he loved humanity in all its variety and difference. But what he did struggle with was the numbers.

Aubrey was born in 1930 when the population of the UK was 46 million. He died in 2018 is was 66 million, 20 million more people in these small islands.  The world population in 1930 was 2 billion, today it is fast heading for 8 billion. In Aubrey’s lifetime we have lost well over half of the mass of wildlife on earth. There are far fewer insects humming, birds singing, fish swimming and so on. Not just abroad in the savannah or rainforest, but right here in the UK too. I remember a programme I made with Aubrey on what has happened to wildlife around his boyhood home in Surrey since he was a boy. He said the natural world just seems thinner, more threadbare. There is less accessible, everyday nature than when he was a boy. He remembers wood warblers, kingfishers and many wildflowers. They have gone.  There are far more people, far fewer wild corners, many more pressures on wildlife. It made him immensely sad.

So, there is no denying he thought the increase in the human population was to blame, but I think he liked this image so much because it doesn’t blame any single group or nation in particular – it doesn’t finger point – this is all of us.  We all consume and take from the earth. Of course, Aubrey well understood that some take far more than others, that richer western countries consume the vast amount of the world’s resources, but the direction of travel for all nations is towards greater consumption, not less. And the trajectory, at least for the next few decades, is for an increasing population. This ate away at him, particularly in his later years.

Aubrey joined David Attenborough and became a patron of the charity Population Matters, which raises awareness of the problems caused by the growing human population and he was passionate about it. He wrote many letters and campaigned and lobbied tirelessly. But not because he thought people are a bad thing, his concern didn’t come from being anti-people, it came from a deep love of the earth and he wanted future generations to experience the awe and wonder of the natural world as he had done. He wanted people to live on a thriving planet that supported their needs but at the same time allowed other life to flourish too.

And there is no doubt Aubrey revelled in the wildness of the earth. I remember going with him to the Scottish island of Rhum to do a programme on the red deer rut. If you have never experienced it, the rut is a life tick.  Red deer males are so pumped up in the breeding season they barely eat, they bellow and paw the ground and they swish their antlers through vegetation. We spent the night in a row of tin huts on a remote part of Rhum, away from any houses or roads, to see the deer being studied by Josephine Pemberton as part of a famous, long-term research programme. That night, after we had gone to bed, a red deer stag called Clatter 95 came to the hut and I was woken by the sound of him bashing his huge antlers against the tin wall of my bedroom. He was bellowing outside my window. It was quite scary! The next morning Aubrey was like a 6-year-old, so excited by what had happened. “Did you hear it!  It was fantastic!” And many a time afterwards he said, “I wonder what happened to dear old Clatter 95??” It amused him greatly to discover that Clatter was impressive in the antler department but in fact sired very few offspring and died a few years later from exhaustion! His skull rests in the research station as one of the famous red deer stags of the island.

On our way back to the mainland we chartered a small boat. It was a windy, stormy day. I am a poor sailor and sat in a corner of the deck going a deeper shade of green by the second. Aubrey, though, stood at the bow, open coat flapping in the wind, loving every single second. He reminded me of a passage from a book by my conservation hero, John Muir, who describes sailing off the east coast of America, the white spray and wind thrilling him to his soul. That was Aubrey. He was a giant of a man who was as excited about discussing natural history as music as my work on curlews as he was describing the “delicious” characters conjured up in the mind of Trollope, his favourite author. And no one, simply no one, could say “delicious” like Aubrey.

I personally learned so much from him. I treasured every minute I spent with him. As Stephanie Hilbourne said, spending time with Aubrey was like reading a book you never want to end. But I think what I learned most from him was the importance of integrity. His life was full of integrity. He was an authentic, deeply honest and good human being, and that is worth more than anything else. I shall miss him so very much.

Yesterday a friend asked me to help with some phrases for a talk he was giving on curlews and the crisis they are facing. It was a strange request in some ways as I haven’t thought like that before. So I sat down and wrote from the heart.

I said I would start by asking the audience what really matters to them? I bet if you did a poll very few, if any, would say just money. No one runs their lives purely on the basis of what something costs. Be that an otter or a sparrow, an elephant or a river, we value them for their own, magnificent selves, not because somehow their presence translates into cash. They lift our hearts, that is all that matters. I’d then ask, what do you teach your children? What do you want for their future? We all want the next generation to be good, fine citizens - rounded and balanced. We want them to inhabit a world that is full of wonder and awe. So, I doubt anyone tells them a bedtime story on how to invest in shares or hedge funds. We read to them about songs and animals, love and joy. We take them through forests and into outer space. We ask them to listen and be a quiet person when a mouse comes tiptoeing through the brambles, then shout loudly when a dolphin leaps or an elephant charges. These are the fantastical, earth inspired adventures we take our littles ones on when we pick up a book or go to the park. So what happens as we get older? Why don’t we notice when something beautiful slips away? Why does it take the empty seat on the bus where the curlew sat, or the eagle or the lion, to be permanently empty before we realise what is happening?  Sadly we do, despite being members of wildlife organisations and caring in our hearts for the state of the planet.

We are a species that wants to live with other species, it seems to be part of our nature to reach out to our fellow travellers, but we do a good job of letting them fade away.

I think we love birds like curlews simply because they take us to where the wild things are - out onto the estuary, onto the shores of the ocean, into cold, wet, quiet fields. We love that burst of song that stops us in our tracks and for a moment, we can just listen, just be with a beautiful, shy bird.  But the declines continue and we are getting perilously close to the time when it will be silent in those places where we loved to listen to them tremble their way through spring and summer. Is there no longer any room in our lives for a singer of wild songs? Sadly, it seems not.