According to the MET Office, May came with a quiet and uneventful set of weather. Down here on the Lizard, it felt much better than that. I did a quick comparison with May of last year. It was one of the wettest months on record, bringing thunderstorms, landslides, and floods after a bitterly cold and dry April. A big contrast to this year with many warm and bright sunny days, which we were all ready to experience and followed by some very mild nights.
It was #NoMowMay; essentially a nationwide request for householders, gardeners, County Councils and landowners 'to let their lawns, verges and hedges grow freely to give nature a boost'. Information provide by plantlife.org.uk, (the organisers behind this campaign), showed that simple changes in mowing, 'can result in enough nectar for 10 times more bees and pollinators'. Given the present crash of some insect populations and the devastating effect this has on the birds and our crops, not mowing, is a brilliant and simple way to spread the word and everyone can join in without lifting a finger or spending any money. What's not to like?
The 14th of May is World Migratory Bird Day and although they didn't wait until the 14th, the swallows came back and a trio of swifts have also been spotted. There's something so joyous about the return of the swallows, immediately busy mending and making their nests, chattering away to each other, swooping in and out of the barns. This year was tinged with sadness as their numbers had diminished considerably, only about a dozen made it back, it is usually at least double that number. However, the swifts are a new addition and as their numbers have plummeted in recent years, it is good to have their screeching calls ringing out in the yard. Swifts have been around for millenia, truly ancient beasts that would have nested in gaps on rocks or in the trees alongside the last of the tyrannosaurs but things have changed and the RSPB states that they are now 'at risk of disappearing from our skies'. Their numbers have more than halved and in 2021 they were added to the UK's list of most endangered birds. This is a tragedy that is directly linked to climate breakdown and the overuse of pesticides.
The blame lies across many walks of life: the farming industry's over use of pesticides, along with County Councils across the UK, happily spraying our roadsides and hedges, the continual dumping of animal sewage into our rivers, golf courses reliant on fertilisers and pesticides for their pristine greens and many gardeners too. Decades of research show the damage that pesticides can and do wreak on our environment but governments the world over are happy to ignore science and allow the lobbyists from the agribusiness corporations to buy their morality. There are five major pesticide companies that dominate the market and they make billions of pounds annunally by manufacturing and selling 'highly, hazardous pesticides' (HHP). Worse still, a significantly higher proportion of these HHP's are sold to poorer and developing countries; 59% to India and 11% to UK as an example.
A report made in 2017 by Baskut Tuncak, (the UN specialist on hazardous substances and human rights), accused pesticide companies of,'systematic denials of harm, aggressive, unethical marketing techniques' and of lobbying governments to 'obstruct reforms and paralyse global pesticide restrictions'. It is the Tobacco Industry's songbook all over again. Tuncak also stated that the idea that pesticides were needed to feed the world was a myth. 'There is nothing sustainable about the widespread use of highly hazardous pesticides for agriculture...whether they poison workers, extinguish biodiversity, persist in the environment, or accumulate in a mother's breast milk, these are unsustainable, cannot be used safely, and should have been phased out of use long ago'. (Research by 'Unearthed and Public Eye). I had no idea that NoMowMay would lead me so naturally into a full on rant about pesticides but luckily there is no editor to stop me and so, the rant stays.
There were other moments from May that led to lighter thoughts. The wildflowers were in abundance; foxgloves bursting out of every crevice in the walls and rocks, Lady's smock, swathes of Bird's trefoil, orchids down by the river bank, hawthorn flowers scattered over the hedgerows, large soft leaves of Comfrey appearing in gaps, white clover densely packed across the short grass and Figwort everywhere - its presence has not been noticed in previous years but this May it roamed across every bit of scrubland and competed with the Foxgloves in damp hedges. But the glory of the month lay with the thistles in the field. There are over 200 types throughout the world but the field here is dominated by three varieties; the Marsh thistle, the Spear thistle and the Creeping thistle. The Marsh and the Spear appear in May as enormous rosettes - glorious, beautiful shapes and patterns that grow flat across the ground and only when this circular base is fully emerged, do the stalks start to move up and create a different dynamic to the plant. They are part of the daisy family and have a long history of medicinal use for a diverse set of illnesses; fevers, dysentery, bleeding, worms, sores, absesses, ailments of the liver and many more. I've yet to experience their medicinal benefits but I'm happy to have them around, they look magnificent, they smell of honey and the bees and flying insects love them. Their glory doesn't last but that's for another month, for now, they rule the roost.
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