{"id":449,"date":"2021-07-12T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T07:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofthewild.co.uk\/blog\/?p=449"},"modified":"2021-10-19T21:46:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T21:46:04","slug":"armchair-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/?p=449","title":{"rendered":"Armchair conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a certain smugness involved when you can say that you\u2019ve actively contributed to the recovery of a threatened species. Most conservation measures involve plain hard work \u2013 laying hedges, trimming encroaching bushes, digging out invasive plants. Mine involved finding a chair and a good book. It\u2019s the easiest contribution to nature conservation I\u2019ve ever made.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s nothing like being stuck indoors much of the time to help you see the jobs you\u2019ve been putting off for years. I\u2019ve been busily focussed on removing 25-year-old wallpaper, and in consequence I\u2019ve rather let my small garden go. I had always intended to do this, as a nod to the honeybee and the other animals and insects which welcome a touch of un-manicured wilderness, but it\u2019s gone further than planned. Bindweed and brambles have taken hold beneath unpruned roses, and I appear to be growing dandelion as a cash crop. The wee mad Victorian in me wants to pull it all up and restore order, but there\u2019s a growing beauty in its wildness, as the seed heads of unmown grasses start to resemble a field of barley in the breeze.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Last night, I was woken by a sound like someone repeatedly whispering \u201cwork\u201d.\u00a0 I thought it was a cat, but wobbly torchlight revealed instead two hedgehogs circling each other. It\u2019s the start of a mating dance that can (and did)\u00a0 last several hours. The Germans have a delightful word for it:\u00a0 an \u2018igelkarussel\u2019.\u00a0 Hedgehog populations are in steep decline, and in July last year it was officially classed as vulnerable to extinction. It seems that my laziness has inadvertently given this pair exactly what they need: plentiful slugs and snails (we haven\u2019t used slug pellets for years) and mounds of rotting vegetation to hibernate in over winter. Now somewhere in my garden, in just over a month, a desperately-needed batch of hoglets will be born.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All of which means, of course, that I can\u2019t start mowing now. Can anyone recommend a good book?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"hedgehog\"

The hedgehog. Now, unbelievably, endangered<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a certain smugness involved when you can say that you\u2019ve actively contributed to the recovery of a threatened species. Most conservation measures involve plain hard work \u2013 laying hedges, trimming encroaching bushes, digging out invasive plants. Mine involved finding a chair and a good book. It\u2019s the easiest contribution to nature conservation I\u2019ve ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mammals","category-species-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevedeeley.bunchadon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}