Them or Us?

Not to make good use of these lingonberries when there's a record harvest should make us feel guilty.

And it's one of the easiest preserves to make.

Not sentiments shared by a letter writer in this week's Sheffield Telegraph. She thinks we should leave the wild fruit for the birdies, and tells us she has railed at people taking all the blackcurrants (?) on a bush near Fox House, leaving nothing left for the wild birds. I think it may be blackberries or even bilberries she's referring to - could even be a sub editing error.

I have no sympathy with this point of view and will continue taking bilberries, lingonberries and blackberries from Blacka. It's not just that my heart has been hardened by years of experience of birds stripping my garden fruit ruthlessly while obstinately ignoring the slugs and snails that are everywhere and easy to find.

The fruit on Blacka - close to Fox House - is always more than enough for bird and man. And this year has been truly exceptional. I watch the birds, often assembled in family parties, taking the fruit until eventually they decide they've had enough. Towards Christmas the fruit disappears and the birds have moved on, not because of a shortage but because that is their regular seasonal habit. Some migrate others drop down into the lower land where bird tables offer temptation. One exception to this is the flocks of migrating thrushes passing over during winter months though they prefer the tree fruit on Rowan, never much targetted by foraging humans; even then the berries around suburban gardens tends to be more attractive to them.

Great crops of bilberry and lingonberry like those we have are a feature of managed landscapes that have been benignly or accidentally neglected. Blacka's character is one part way along the road of natural succession. In between the over exploitation of intense livestock grazing and, once that's removed, the succession to woodland some fascinating and delightful examples of nature doing its own thing make life interesting. SRWT as we know want to carry on imposing their human will on a land that resents and resists. Two years ago a strip was cut to near ground level as a firebreak, a pretty ineffective one, Lots of berries started to grow after a while but so did scores of birch trees which they now plan to cut back. It was predictable. Further back, not part of that management, is the most productive area of fruit with just a few birch growing. Lesson: the more you manage the more you have to manage. All gardeners know this. Why garden what you choose to call wild land?