I wondered what it was like in Roman times as I headed up Ermine Street to the south bank of the Humber. The legions probably didn’t have to judge when to overtake a large lorry as they headed north from Lincoln, and when they got to the estuary they had to make a ferry crossing rather than find their way to the Humber Bridge.
But I was staying on the south side of the estuary to do a bit of birding at the local patch of a friend of mine who is a regular, indeed long-term, WeBS counter here.
I’ve been to Alkborough before and looked down on the fields that are now a managed realignment site where the estuary can spill over once every 20 years or so, but that allows other places to be defended from flooding with cheaper defences. It was a lovely sunny day and it was good to catch up with someone whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while.
The birds weren’t generous to us but they weren’t unkind either. We saw a few marsh harriers and a large flock of golden plovers and lapwings in the distance. A few ducks were dabbling and a flock of pied wagtails fed in a soggy field. Five grey geese flew past without calling and were orientated such that we couldn’t see their colours, Were they the few bean geese that were local, or even perhaps some white-fronts? Probably not, probably the local greylags but we’ll never know.
We talked of birds we had seen and not seen, places we had been and not been, politicians we had met and not met, and conservation issues we had solved and not solved, as my birding companion was Elliot Morley the former Environment Minister.
On my way home down Ermine Street I wondered about how things change. The Roman Empire was, perhaps, a rather heavy-handed attempt at European unity but I wonder what the world would be like if the Roman Empire’s maximal extent had remained a political entity to this date. We wouldn’t be bothered about Scottish independence referenda as Scotland and Ireland were never part of the empire. But England and Wales would be part of a political union including Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, Israel, Egypt , Lebanon and much of north Africa. What might that lot have come up with together, I wonder?
I like that type of thought experiment, but I had a lorry to overtake and this time the sun was shining in my eyes.
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The only time I met Elliot Morley was in the House of Commons when I and the North West Raptor Group was represented by Dale Campbell Savoirs after the killing of Hen Harriers on Geltsdale in 1989, a court case against 2 of the members the North West Raptor Group and the RSPB moving me from my job and Elliot was representing the RSPB. Our question in 1993 was why was the RSPB not protecting Birds of Prey especially Hen Harriers. I felt it was a wasted journey. {I hate London any way!] So many people are still asking the same question! What has changed!
Hi Mark, glad to hear you’ve been in Lincolnshire and in terms of what the Romans never did for us, they never built us a Saxon Shore Fort, unlike those cosseted folk in Norfolk, as far as the written and archaeological record shows so far at any rate. All empires go the same way in the end. I guess an empirical study of the impact of the collapse of empires on bird populations would make a good read. One for Jared Diamond to consider perhaps. Mind you the Romans did leave some nice structures in Lincoln, like Newport Arch through which Ermine Street passes. They also built the Car Dyke which runs from Lincoln to Peterborough along the western edge of the fens, alongside which I ticked Marsh Tit for Lincs in 1986. Interestingly Car Dyke seems to act as the limit to Marsh Tit distribution in SW Lincs, there are hardly any records to the East. I’m not going to argue that the Romans built it for that purpose though.
I’ve been out WeBS counting today on my bike but with no one for a companiable chat. Elliot Morley was always a minister who seemed committed to birds so I’m glad to hear he’s a WeBS counter too. I had a client once who was sent to jail for tax evasion for 8 months. He did his “bird” in an open prison and did a lot of management work on a local nature reserve. He said he’d enjoyed that part of the experience. Hope Elliot was able to get something similar out of his own stretch.