It wasn’t only the wildlife of the forests which impressed in Poland, so did the wildlife of the meadows and farmland.

From the balcony of our accommodation …

… there were views over the surrounding gardens …

… and a few minutes walk away were the meadows around the river.

The English countryside would have looked a bit more like this 75 years ago, and its wildlife would have had a greater resemblance too.

In the meadows on the edge of town there were Corncrakes singing from the hayfields, just as they would have done in my grandparents’ youth.

There were Red-backed Shrikes and Wrynecks in the meadows, but also in the gardens around where we stayed, rather like they would have been in the UK in my parents’ youth and almost in my own.

And there were Lapwings, Snipe, Cuckoos, Tree Sparrows, Corn Buntings integrated into the farmed and built up landscapes – as was much more common in my own youth.

Throw in some White and Black Storks, River and Barred Warblers, and some unfamiliar butterflies and plants and a stroll out of the house could keep one’s attention for hours.

Now I’m not suggesting that we should turn our economic clock back several decades but it is striking, to any naturalist, how much wildlife we have lost so carelessly. Do we flock to our national parks to recapture the wildlife experiences of our childhoods? Hardly! We are much more likely to be reminded of our childhoods by taking a 2000km train journey to the eastern side of the EU than to find it in our own ‘protected’ landscapes.

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