The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Once it was maybe a delight of a wander across open land, to pick a flower that sways in a space you find reaches your happy gland. Take it home and there, in a small vase or cup on the windowsill, is that delicate flower. A reminder of that wander, your imagination fills in the surroundings with the noise of bees and breeze.

Get caught picking a wild flower today and you risk having your hand chopped off. Taught in schools and by conscientious parents.


However, if you are the Environment Agency it is OK to scythe down great swards of flowers, in their prime, along many miles of the Humber Bank. I need to have this logic explained to me as I can not seem to find any sense of this recent action. Am I naive?

One wonders what part of the Environment they are supposed to protect ,
not the vegetation/wildflowers and the birds animals and insect living in it, along river , main drain, and sea defence embankments
A late summer and autumn mowing would be far less damaging, and the taxpayer picks up the bill for this action.

regards John

Senseless environmental vandalism Andy.

Perhaps it would be helpful if there were to be some sort of co-operation/liaison between the Environment Agency, Natural England, the county wildlife trusts and the highways departments of county councils.

Instead of working together, they seem to operate within silos - each organisation pursuing its own agenda.

If only it had the resources, the Lincolnshire Bird Club would probably also be a valuable partner.

Jim, I am maybe guilty of naivety as I consider this but I would assume that these departments would, at best, work with each other or, at worst, be in possession of environmental best practices when in control of such large portions of land.

The opportunity to connect landscapes is massive. Nature reserves are becoming museums, a place you may pensively walk around or take children to see things extraordinary. Living landscapes need connectivity and land use is difficult to connect with so many alternative owners with alternative objectives and budgets.

Government bodies such as Councils and Natural England should be less constrained to make such small adjustments to practices on very simple land management. If you factor in the hedgerow management of farms IE the early autumn cutting that wastes berry/fruit crops then we can begin to see the benefit and connectivity.

Imagine this cooperation County-wide and then dream of this action Nation-wide and then Europe-wide and we see tiny benefits magnified into something magnificent. Simple x simple = success

It all seems far too easy and therefore I must be missing some important part that has stopped this practice to date.

You've widened, the discussion, Andy, but I agree

The trouble with the concept of "nature reserves" is that many people believe that nature only occurs in them - not anywhere else.

This belief seems to have fed into children who love attending the young people's activities staged at reserves by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust - but don't carry their enthusiasm over into the rest of their lives, either as youngsters or oldsters. (As evidence of this, witness the LBC's low membership of young people).

In an ideal world, there would be no need for nature reserves. "Living landscapes" and "connectivity" would be sufficient - especially if society encouraged a more widespread appreciation of the natural world whatever the setting - urban, rural, coastal etc.

In a sense, TV is another downer. Viewers come to the conclusion that nature is something that only occurs in places visited by David Attenborough etc - not within their own gardens and on their own streets.

Re native hedgerows, what irks me is when they are cut down to not much more than knee height so that they are, in effect, just ornamental with no value for birds or other wildlife. Local councils are just as responsible for this as some farmers. Their overriding priority is to keep nature "neat and tidy".

As for the practice of beach-raking - even in winter - I think I'll leave that topic for another time. . . .