ENHS Nature Trails February 2005 Article 3

In Cambridge
by Reida Kimmel

We are six thousand miles away from the Kimmel farm, and as I hardly can tell you any of its winter stories, I will have to introduce you to a new garden in the city of Cambridge, England, and a farm five miles to the south of the city. We have a ground floor flat in a rather new apartment complex for the active elderly, a small but cheerful place. Our livingroom window stretches floor to ceiling and looks out onto a tiny rather formal garden, enclosed by a honey-colored brick wall. Spring is very early this year. A small shrub rose has been in bloom all winter, and now, the flowering quince trained along the wall is covered with blossoms. Numerous pretty evergreen plants, Euonymous fortunei, laurel, lavender, cotoneaster, New Zealand flax (Phormium), and even a little palm surround a small brick patio. Between the shrubs large hellebores are blooming vigorously without a trace of slug damage. In the center of the patio there is a small circular flowerbed stuffed with bulbs and pansies. Elsewhere in Cambridge in the nearby college gardens, the earth under the great beech and plane trees is carpeted with tiny golden winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), which we rarely see in America, bright blue scilla, and snowdrops, (Galanthus nivalis). Blossoms are indeed several weeks early this year, but springs here are even earlier and longer than in Eugene, belying England's hideous reputation for being cold and wet. In addition, this past January has been the second warmest on record. As for wet, Cambridge is one of the driest places in northern Europe, with an average rainfall of 24 inches. Last year it had only eighteen inches. It is saved from being a desert by its relatively cool, cloudy and damp summers. But I believe it is more likely to be the mulch of sharp cream-colored gravel than the dry climate that preserves the flowers from slugs.

The exciting thing about "my" garden is its bird life. Except for the owl of unknown species (I suspect Athene noctua, the little owl), which we hear in the predawn hours most mornings, the birds we see are just common British garden varieties, but to us they are exotic. They come right up onto the steps outside our door to eat seeds and crusts and we see them incredibly clearly. A solitary female blackbird (Turdus merula) often comes to partake in the crumbs. The male of the species is indeed black, but the female is quite thrush-like in her markings, brown with dark streaky spotting on her breast. Soon she will find a mate (there are lots of blackbirds in the park outside the wall) and we will hear melodious song, mornings and evenings. Another member of the thrush family (Turdidae) and one of my favorite birds, is the English robin (Erithacus rubecula). The one that visits us, like all its kind, possesses incredibly delicate legs and feet, a tiny slender beak and bright orange face and upper chest. He or she is very bold and has an interesting habit of pecking about the metal legs and underparts of the garden furniture, presumably hunting minute insects. The English robin is very territorial and is one of the few birds to sing all year. Its long bubbling and very sweet song is a delight on a dark wintry day. As this bird has not been serenading us, perhaps it is a female. The garden beyond ours has a tall messy Buddleia bush that overtops our wall. This is where the tits (Paridae) hang out. We have a pair each of blue tits (Parus caeruleus) and great tits (Parus major). They feed in pairs, the blue tits giving way to the somewhat larger great tits if the two species should happen to arrive at the crumbs simultaneously. Both species show their relationship to our chickadees in their markings. The blue tit, however, has distinct blue tones in its head markings and on its side, while the great tit has a coal black head above its white cheeks, and an ebony bib running down the center if its chest.

At the small farm in the village of Sawston south of Cambridge where I go once or twice a week to take horseback riding lessons, there are other birds to see, though not so closely. The large beech and ash trees that line the field boundaries have families of rooks (Corvus frugilegus). Rooks are large colonial corvids--our Jays and crows belong to this family--who will become very noisy later in the spring when the breeding season begins and the big nests high in the trees need guarding and tending. From time to time I can hear the sounds of canon fire in the distance, shooting blanks of course, to frighten the pigeons off the young "corn," or as we would call it, wheat and barley. These are not the city pigeons, but a much larger species, the woodpigeon (Columba palumbus), a beautiful bird, but a terrible pest to farmers. Black and white pied wagtails (Motacilla alba) bob and dip about in the paddocks, finding treasure in the horses' leavings. Then there is the peacock, hardly a native species, but such a weird character. He lives in the village wandering the street, ambling onto people's lawns and front steps. Twice he has made me jump by sneaking up behind me as I walked down Common Lane, beeping loudly behind my back.

One can see Common Lane as a kind of microcosm of modern British countryside and its problems and triumphs. Possessed of extremely fertile soil, Cambridgeshire is turning its back on its centuries old agricultural heritage. Hi-tech industry is flourishing, and the villages south of the city of Cambridge are now home to large research facilities. Demand for housing is very high of course, and in the seven years that I have been going to Sawston to ride, I have seen the blocks of sweet, new little cottages relentlessly gobbling up the farmland. But in the last two years, building has stopped on Common Lane, leaving all the remaining land between the houses and the London to Liverpool Street Rail Line dedicated to farming. The farmers have to be clever to survive. I don't pry, but I know that one farmer is "organic," which adds value in the market for his cattle and pigs. One old farmer has a lovely flock of Jacob sheep that would put any American flock to shame. He sells his wool to hand spinners, again adding value to the product. My riding school has very little land and treats its pastures like the crown jewels. The owner trains sheep dogs in one pasture where horses are never allowed. The school also boards horses and buys young horses, training and reselling them quickly, again, that catch phrase of the farming community, "added value." It always makes me sad when a horse I have been working with for a few weeks just disappears into the nefarious "Bob from Newmarket's" truck, but by now I know that like it or not, he has left something new in its place.

By now you surely see a resemblance to our own Willamette Valley in my tale of the farm. The very prosperity that enables us to have the intellectual resources and the leisure time to enjoy nature, brings with it population growth and development which destroy the wild things we have learned to cherish. The struggle to keep the richest lands for agriculture, to keep the green places green and the countryside open for recreation, is common to the developed Western nations that place a high cultural value on Nature. In reality, there is no way we can turn back the tide and do away with our modern world, but like the farmers in Sawston, we can be optimistic and resourceful even if it is in small ways. When we vote to support increasing funding for parks or against new highways, or when we volunteer our time to the Arboretum or the bike path cleanup, we are doing our part to preserve and enhance our most treasured and endangered resource, open space.

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