Country diary: the moors are a tale of loss, but the raptors bring hope

Buxton, Derbyshire: On this denuded edge, stripped of so many species, a peregrine and four buzzards puncture the sterilityWood warbler, ring ouzel, common redstart, tree pipit, common sandpiper, twite, cuckoo and lapwing: these birds, whose names I jotted down on each spring visit to Lightwood in the 1970s, may seem insignificant, but to me they're a skeleton summary of my childhood and my origins as a naturalist. Every day I would see at least one of them.In a way, the list also narrates the shape of my adulthood, because every one of those species, except redstart, has declined catastrophically in Britain. For the last 40 years I've been writing about the environmental losses that the story of these Lightwood birds imply. Continue reading...