Tag Archives: floods

A Few Words to Fill a Gap

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We had thunder and lightening yesterday, as i have already noted.  After that we had hours of rain. It rained heavily all night, or at least for the parts I was awake, and it is still raining now, at midday. If you are a plant that needs rain, or a depleted pond, or a duck, this must be great weather. If you live near a river it is, I assume, less good.

It’s an example of how we all live our lives in selfish compartments. I’m lucky enough to live in a fairly hilly country, so we aren’t going to disappear as global sea levels rise, though we may change shape. If I were living in the Maldives, which would probably be a great experience most of the time, I wouldn’t consider myself quite so lucky as my country gradually submerged.

Healthy Salmon. Well, healthy for me. The salmon is looking like it’s beyond the reach of medical aid.

I have varying degrees of sympathy for flood victims. Some, like the people of the Maldives, are blameless victims (or at least as blameless as anyone cn be in these days of consumption and consumerism). People who come on the UK news, complaining that the government should “do something” to stop their house flooding, I have less sympathy for. If you buy a house by a river, this is going to happen. I don’t wish bad things to happen to anyone, but you have to take care of certain things for yourself, and government can’t fix everything. In fact, as we have seen recently, governments can’t fix much. It’s the old bookshelf problem, as the new government squeezes a new policy onto the crowded shelf, something else falls off the end.

It’s like taxing the rich. Good policy – far better than taxing the poor. But as we are already seeing, the rich are a moving target, and if you tax them they will move. And when they move, they take their taxes and their businesses with them and we end up losing out. labour, just like the Tories before them, have the right idea – impose tax on the middle classes. They can’t afford to move, they can’t afford expensive accountants, but they do have money. And, more importantly they can’t afford to give gifts to politicians. I mean, if you scare all the rich people away, who is going to keep Kier Starmer in suits and glasses?

A well known cure for depression and cynicism – you can’t feel bad with fish and chips.

Well, you’ve had Wordless Wednesday and Thankful Thursday, so welcome to cynical Sunday. I am now going away and will try to find a few non-cynical thoughts for a second post.

1926

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Yesterday was my 1,926th post so, thinking of something different to do, I decided to fall back on the idea of writing about 1926. I’ve been holding it in reserve for a few hundred posts, since the 1,685th post in fact, but always managed to find something else to fill the 250 words.

Today, I feel like a change of pace. I really should write about 1927, but I’ve done some of the work for 1926 so I’ll carry on.

The biggest event of the year was the General Strike, with the country being under martial law from May to December. This lasted considerably longer than the strike, which, like the reign of Lady Jane Grey, and the jig of William Kempe, lasted nine days. There must be some fascination for nine days amongst historians. This may strike a few chords to those of us in lockdown, though there was a major difference – after some problems in 1925 the British Government was prepared for trouble in 1926 and swung into action in an organised way.

In January, the Rhine flooded and 50,000 people had to evacuate their homes, we had flooding in London suburbs, and John Logie Baird demonstrated the first TV.

In February the Irish Government formed the Committee on Evil Literature. Times were different then and there was a lot more censorship about, though it didn’t usually come with a title that sounds like something out of 1984.

In April, the future Queen Elizabeth II was born.

In July the first British Greyhound track opened in Manchester.

In August Rudolph Valentino died at the age of 31, sparking off mass hysteria in women around the world.

In September the Great Miami Hurricane ripped through Miami.

October saw the government of Italy pass a decree banning women from holding public office.

In December Agatha Christie disappeared from home in suspicious circumstances, eventually turning up in Harrogate.

Not much different to 2020 when you think about it – celebrities, TV, sexism, bad weather and politics. Depressing really.

No pictures today, so I went for flowers.

Alpine Strawberries – Sherwood
Apple Blossom – Sherwood
Alyssum

Hitler and the Avocets

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“I cannot help thinking that if only Hitler had been an ornithologist he would have put off the war until the autumn migration was over.”

Manchester Guardian”Country Diaries” September 1939

I suppose most readers will already have a view on Hitler, and that it is unlikely to be based on the impact he had on European ornithology. However, as the quote shows, people are able to view major historic events and see them from a very different point of view. They may even find the energy to write to the papers about it.

It also shows that the consequences of major events can be far-reaching and quite significant, even if they don’t involve battles and the fall of governments.

In the case of the Second World War this included bombing my mother, training a new generation of naturalists, and flooding large parts of eastern England to defend against possible invasion.

Another, better known, example features the struggle with malaria. In the war this involved the wonder chemical DDT, which continued to be used in great quantities after the war as the answer to many problems. The inventor even got a Nobel Prize in 1948  “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods”. It was also highly effective at reducing the viability of birds’ eggs and nearly wiped several species out in the UK.

However, back to the flooded lands. As luck would have it, a party of Avocets drifted across the sea from Holland in 1947, and found conditions that suited them for breeding. At Havergate Island the army had accidentally breached the sea wall during training and at Minsmere the coastal area had been deliberately flooded as a defence against German landings.

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Avocets

 

At that point they had been extinct as breeders in the UK since 1842 due to the pressure from hunting, egg collectors and taxidermists. It seems to be a factor in the decline of rare birds, such as the Passenger Pigeon and Great Auk, that the rarer they became the more desirable the few survivors became to egg and skin collectors.

Gradually the Avocets consolidated their position, becoming the symbol of the RSPB along the way. From four pairs in 1947 we now have 1,500 pairs according to the latest figures.

For another example of how WW2 is contributing to wildlife, see this link.

I found this whilst looking up DDT. The mind boggles.

Thanks to Rodney Read and the Chatburn Village website for the well researched story of the bombing.