A natural life – the self-will of existence
Fulmar
If the intrinsic value of wild nature is not axiomatic, then how can it be explained? Although I did not set out with the intention of it being a proof, the extended observations of the natural lives of a wildflower community and two bird species of a coastal cliff system on the North Yorkshire Coast, has shown me that it is the intrinsic properties of wild nature, the self-will of its existence, that is the compelling evidence for the defence of wild nature
In an essay in ECOS earlier this year, Jack Crone, a then Masters student in Leadership for Sustainable Development, observed that a paper on the guiding principles for rewilding had recognised “the intrinsic value of all species and ecosystems” but that there had been no attempt in the paper to justify this belief as a “normative doctrine – a doctrine that explains and defends what is ethically desirable or good” (1). Crone went on to say that it was not clear why we should recognise nature as intrinsically valuable, or why we should act in accordance with that belief. He then set up an opposition between a utilitarian, anthropocentric view of the need to protect nature for its usefulness, to that of an ecocentric view of value for its own sake - “It is just so” - while muddying the waters by invoking a “spiritual account of nature” and the “idea of a divine natural order”
The rest of his essay sought to navigate the standpoints of values and morals before introducing his concept of ethical potential, claiming that we can “measure the moral worth of something based on its capacity for a moral or immoral action, or in its effect on the capacity of others for such action. What that means is someone, or something, does not have to be necessarily ‘good’ in the traditional sense (pleasant, desirable, beneficial) to warrant ethical consideration, but that the ability to be so is the higher concern”. I struggle to understand this, as I do the further explanation he gives, which seems to endow all life, sentient or otherwise, with ethical potential but also personhood. He believes that the protection and restoration of the ability for earth’s natural systems to provide sustenance for all life is the “highest good we can aspire to. As the basis of all ethical potential, the inherent value of nature then is obvious”. The flaw in this would seem obvious, that there would be no need for rewilding, for the restoration of ecosystems, if it were not for the decline in capacity for sustenance for what Crone observes as “our organic cousins”
The intrinsic value of nature is surely an axiom
I had a hand in writing that paper on the guiding principles for rewilding (2). It was in Principle 9 of the paper where to be precise it said “Rewilding recognizes the intrinsic value of all species and ecosystems”. It went on to say “Rewilding should primarily be an ecocentric, rather than an anthropocentric, activity” which is probably why Crone without explanation set up his opposition of competing values. I have to say that drafting a multi-authored paper, as in the guiding principles, was always going to be a difficult process, begging the question of whether constantly chain-editing a draft by numerous parties was an effective approach in trying to satisfy all points of view. For instance, early drafts contained a needless observation on the uncertainties in defining wilderness when my concern was that defining rewilding didn’t gain from an unnecessary and unwarranted casting of doubt on wilderness definition. It was removed.
My memory, though, is that there was no disagreement about using intrinsic value, surely an axiom that I have often used in relation to wild nature, and without pondering whether it needed explanation or justification. Thus, when responding many years ago to a draft Vision for the Natural Environment, I wrote that in common with a number of other respondents, I found that the “values of the draft Vision concentrate too much on the human use of natural resources, rather than giving an emphasis to the intrinsic value of wild nature that has its own space away from the land that we utilise” (3) and in a consultation on England's Forestry Strategy, I maintained that often “strategies for natural assets concentrate too much on the human extractive use of these natural resources, rather than giving an emphasis to the intrinsic value of the wild nature that they embody” (4). More recently, in writing about wolf reinstatement to Britain I said that I “don’t tend to justify reinstatements on the basis of ecosystem service or function (use value) because I take the view that it’s not about gain but absence when considering the intrinsic value of lost wild nature, that absence or incompleteness having consequences for the trophic ecology of our landscapes” (5). When reflecting on the instinct for enquiry that my own uncommon biology education had instilled, I bemoaned the current trend for pushing nature studies in curricula in a harking back to some romantic notion of observations in culturally dominated landscapes – “By calling it natural history it continues to de-emphasise the intrinsic value and right to existence of wild nature” (6)
Occasionally, I have used the word inherent as well, as I did when I deliberated between the anthropocentrism of the experiential value I have from walking wild places, and the most pressing need - now that human population has vastly outgrown the capacity of the “self-perpetuating, ecological richness of wilderness” to support it - was not to further jeopardise what remains of the wilderness that supports non-human species - “As I have often maintained, it is a recognition of the intrinsic (inherent) value of wild nature, a value that doesn’t stem from or rely on any human agency, other than an unselfish outlook in its defence” (7) and in wildness “trophic diversity is the essential characteristic, and trophic cascades are its inherent ecological processes” (8). I have also decried the lack of a “value system for wild nature” (9-11).
The phrase value-laden, however, indicates the terminological wobbly in the use of the word value, and so I see that I have also used intrinsic in relation to aspects of natural process, such as the “intrinsically wild behaviour patterns” of wolves, and “territoriality and social behaviour being the intrinsic mechanisms regulating wolf density” (12) as well as a “confidence in the intrinsic properties of wild nature in being able to reproduce natural patterns of development and association”; the “intrinsic ecological properties of wild nature of self-assembly and self-perpetuation” (13) and “Furthermore, if we are truly going to lift our schoolchildren out of the straitjacket of nature studies, then they have to be able to look past the cultural domination of land and nature and foresee a future where the intrinsic ecology of the natural world is expressed here again” (6). Another pairing came when I reflected on why I chose self-willed land as an anchoring banner for my writings. Wilderness is a fraught term in Britain, but I was impressed by the etymological analysis of philosopher Jay Hansford Vest that wilderness meant ““self-willed land” or “self-willed place” with an emphasis on its own intrinsic volition” and that a “wild animal is a “self-willed animal” - an undomesticated animal” (14). It seemed self-explanatory when I came across that, and my understanding and use of self-willed land has always been about that intrinsic volition.
These pairings of intrinsic with other words met a synthesis when I bemoaned the prevalence of the absolute vacuum of ecological thought in current nature discourse – “The evidence is poor that we are an ecologically literate nation when we can’t see clearly that wildness is the outcome of the intrinsic properties of ecology, of that self-assembly and self-perpetuation of natural communities, rather than the straightjacket of human politics, such as the ideological monetarisation of biodiversity, or of sociology where people get to make decisions that wild nature should be making” (15).
Human dominance over wild nature despoils its intrinsic value
I suspect Crone may maintain that despite these pairing of words, I have come no nearer to adequately explaining a need to defend wild nature for its own sake. The literature abounds with explorations of the intrinsic value of nature, recognising that it is difficult, when it should be without reference to humans as valuers, but which nonetheless can be articulated by people ((16) and see the definition in (17)). Over the years, I have held fast to the notion that it’s not possible to develop a value system for wild nature without having a comparison in locations between managed and self-willed (18) that the more we look into our landscapes for evidence of a self-willed character, the better appreciation we will have of wild nature (9) and that from that kind of detail comes knowledge, and from knowledge comes ecological understanding, but also great joy at the wonder of wild nature (19). Writing a few years ago with my late friend Alison Parfit, we envisaged a future of wild places built on the dynamics of natural systems – “We see in that the free will of ecological interplay being inspiration in itself, and which we convey to others in the hope of enthusing acceptance… It’s a tough ask to get across. At its simplest, we know from experience that if we can take people to places where they can see for themselves the vitality of nature without interference, suppression, or manipulation, then it is no longer an act of faith for them to commit to a wilder future, but these opportunities to experience such wilding are just not that plentiful yet” (20).
I would argue that human dominance over wild nature despoils its intrinsic value, that if you are able to observe wild nature in the absence of that dominance, then you will get to see that intrinsic value played out. This is not about rewilding per se, an even more fraught term now than wilderness, it’s about finding proof that wild nature “doesn’t stem from or rely on any human agency” – it has inherent/intrinsic properties. For many years, I have held ancient woodland to be an environment rich in self-will, enjoying evidence of that in every season, but especially the progression in flowering of woodland specialist plants; the re-emergence of herbaceous ferns; the mosses, fungi, lichen, and insects; the ageing process and decay in trees; and what woodland birds and mammals we still have. Woodland, though, is rarely ever safe from doctrinal interference, and the self-willed characteristic I admire is quickly despoiled by those imposing human views of what a woodland should be (21).
My enchantment with marine ecology revealed on rock terraces at very low tide continues, the persistence of continually searching the same locations paying off this year with a first sighting of the colonial star ascidian sea squirts (Botryllus schlosseri) in shade on rocks both at Runswick and Saltwick Bays on the North Yorkshire coast. I was beginning to despair at ever finding star ascidians on this coast, and that I would have to be content with just baked bean squirts (Dendrodoa grossularia) and another but unnamed colonial sea squirt (Botrylloides leachii) where the zooids are arranged to varying degrees in parallel rows rather than stars (6). Another pay-off was finding a live cowrie, a sea snail (Trivia monarcha) near a patch of Botrylloides leachii on a rock in Saltwick Bay, a satisfying co-occurrence, since that colonial sea squirt is the preferred food of the cowrie (22). The co-occurrence exemplified marine ecology in the food chain from phytoplankton that squirts filter from the sea, to the predator of the squirts. While you could speculate on all the factors of human agency that could impinge on this food chain (cf. (23)) seen in isolation it has that characteristic of a self-will of its existence. However, the low tides bring out the despoilers, the avaricious harvesting of winkles and the opportunistic capture of lobsters, seemingly not for any subsistence use, or even if that subsistence use should be acceptable when there are likely tangential consequences in a location with such marine diversity, but which has no protection. It grates when all I am taking away are photos.
A chronology of native wildflowers coming into bloom
As these last few months of living near the North Yorkshire coast have shown, that self-willed characteristic doesn’t have to be sought in some remote location, it just has to be where people are not a factor. The ~9ha of mostly short grassland with the odd sandstone outcrop on the soft cliff slope of West Cliff at Whitby, is intersected by a network of surfaced paths, which is the heavily used pedestrian routes down to the promenade, and thence onto the sandy beach. The cliffs vary in height between 30 and 45m, and the angles of the slope also vary, being steeper nearer the top (35-60 degrees) compared to the lower slopes (25-40 degrees). Under the mapping of habitats of principal importance required by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, the grassland slopes of West Cliff are shown as Priority Habitat Inventory - Maritime Cliffs and Slopes (England)(see the mapping in (24)). The mapping picks out the network of paths very clearly. To give you an indication of how little people stray off the paths, one day while photographing orchids on the grassland slope, I was asked from below if I needed help by one of the RNLI beach lifeguards, as someone had reported that an elderly man had seemed lost. I can’t claim that this cliff slope is a completely natural space, since there is evidence of decades of drainage work to stabilise the cliffs from erosion, the last major scheme carried out in 1990 (25). However, the soil is still the original glacial till boulder clay that characterises these soft cliffs, while the erosion arose from a hydrology dislocated from its natural state by a road, residential development, and urban drainage above (and see (26)). The only management of the grassland slope is thus the shaping from coastal exposure to wind and sun.
Since April, I have photographically documented a chronology of at least 29 native wildflowers coming into bloom on the cliff slope, coltsfoot (Tusilago farfar) being one of the first, along with celandines (Ficaria verna) field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) a non-flowering spore releaser, and with ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica) and hardhead (Centaurea nigra) being some of the last to come into flower. As befits a coastal location, the slopes were covered in kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria) from May onwards, and with restharrow (Ononis repens) from July. There were, however, six other members of the nitrogen-fixing pea family (Leguminosae) flowering in between those two, amongst which were black medick (Medicago lupulina) bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) masses of red clover (Trifolium pratense) yellow vetchling (Lathyrus aphaca) and tufted vetch (Vicia cracca) remnants of the latter, clover, bird’s-foot trefoil, ragwort, fleabane, and hardhead are still flowering now.
The wildflowers I have mentioned so far could be found in large, extensive patches, seemingly able to demarcate the areas between themselves. They buzzed with insects and day flying moths like the burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae). Other widely distributed wildflowers, but not necessarily forming large patches, were wild carrot (Daucus carota) yarrow (Achillea millefolium) eyebright (Euphrasia nemorosa) a hemiparasite on grasses, selfheal (Prunella vulgaris) and many of the yellow flowers of hawkbits/hawkweeds/hawksbeards (Leontodon/Heracium/Crepis) that I have difficulty distinguishing between. I also came across both the cream flowers of the ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) and the later flowering lemony-yellow of the more eye-catching sea plantain (Plantago maritima) these two being in lower numbers and a more discrete distribution.
It is the orchids on the grassland slope that perhaps have a draw for botanists, and one in particular, although every wildflower there is of interest to me. The earliest flowering was the marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza purpurella) in June, easily spotted at distance, as a purple splash growing down an obvious seepage on the slope. Shortly after that, patches of common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsia) started flowering, seemingly up to 50 in some. As its name implied, this was the most common orchid on the slope, and became a ubiquitous presence in various group sizes after those early patches. This was followed by bee orchids (Ophrys apifera) remarkable for the mimicry of their flowers to look like female bees. They are most likely self-pollinated on the grassland slope, because the male of the species of long-horned bee (Eucera longicornis) that could pollinate the orchid, is not present in the north of England (27). There are not many of these orchids on the grassland slope, with only two locations having up to 10 or more, with odd ones dotted elsewhere, and which along with their smallish size make them less easy to notice. Pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis) were the last to flower, seemingly taking ages for the fat buds on robust stems to open. They occured in large groups in the one area that had the greatest number of bee orchids, but were also dotted elsewhere. The densely packed bright, candy pink pyramid of flowers of this orchid makes it my favourite, although I suppose most people would be attracted to the novelty of the bee orchid.
The successional flowering in the grassland of West Cliff shows the undisturbed expression of native plant life, the intrinsic properties of those species to trap sunlight, grow, flower, and attract pollinators if they need them. It exemplifies an autonomous process of self-assembly and perpetuation. There is a nearby location about 170m inland in the Upgang Ravine at the west end of grassland slope, where you find bee orchid, common spotted orchid and other wildflowers that blossom a few weeks earlier than their counterparts on the grassland slope. It is easily noticed, as it’s an area of east-facing slope where brambles and other coarse vegetation along with shrubbery are absent compared to the rest of the slope. It has been managed yearly during November by volunteers from Whitby Naturalists’ Club using strimmers and other hand tools, and raking off the grass and brash (28) because the flowers there are “threatened by scrub encroachment” (29) and which “has to be done regularly to maintain the flora” (30). Clearly, this area of the slope does not have the natural forces of coastal exposure to maintain it as an open grassland. You have to ask yourself why there is this driven obsession in mainstream conservation to keep a presence of species in locations where they are thus dependent on human agency.
I have so much enjoyed watching these agile fliers
There is a series of holes in a sand lens in the glacial till (31) towards the top of the coastal soft cliff just west of Upgang Ravine, perhaps 60 or so holes of ~10cm diameter, mostly round, but some appearing rectangular, seemingly equidistant apart and in rows. It’s not hard to work out that these are nest holes when you see small birds flitting out of the holes, effortlessly gliding over the sand and grassland before returning to the holes. This is a sand martin (Riparia riparia) nesting colony. Sand martins are the smallest member of the summer visiting hirundines, perhaps 12cm long with brown above and white below, a brown band across the chest and a short, forked tail (32,33). They arrive from Africa as early as March, when I first noticed them this year, and if the male can’t find an unoccupied existing nest hole, it excavates a new tunnel in the sand where the female, once paired with the male, builds a nest with grass and other soft materials, and will lay her eggs, the male and female sharing incubation. Sand martins feed on small, flying insects, and so once the eggs are hatched, the adults are out searching for that food, catching it on the wing. There are two other nesting colonies in sand lenses further west along this soft cliff, ~520m and ~650m from the first. They too are high up on the soft cliff, and have fewer nesting holes (~20) but they have been equally active.
I have so much enjoyed watching these agile fliers, seemingly unconcerned when they have flown so closely past me at low level, accompanied by the cheery chatter of their flight call (34). I have known when the eggs have hatched because faces, sometimes up to three, appeared at the entrance to the tunnel when I zoom in with my camera. More recently, there have been flocks of sand martins soaring and circling around the cliff top above and below the nest colonies, a sign that the young have fledged and are exercising their new powers of flight in company with the adults. They return to the burrows to rest. I have speculated on whether the three colonies communicate. Will there be a consensus on when to set off back to Africa? I was sad to see a week or so ago that the middle colony had no activity. A check today showed a much-diminished activity still at the first and third nest colony, the feeding of the faces at the openings to the tunnels suggesting late or a second brood.
These sand martins have a high-level view of the activity of people (and their dogs) on the beach below, and are not dissuaded by it, since they are safe from human interference, and we do not compete for their food. Theirs is primarily a natural existence. The erosion of the soft cliff is active around their sand lenses due to the mobility of the soil face that causes a lack of vegetation. In late July, I noticed a worrying crack in the cliff face earth to the left side of the sand lens of the first sand martin nest colony, and feared that any break and slump there would release the sand and destroy the colony. It hasn’t done so far, but the lack of vegetation is from a vicious circle of cliff instability, my prejudice suggesting that it is partly the point drainage from the golf course above that is the cause of it (and see (26)). I suppose you could argue that the erosion may reveal new sand lenses, and so there may be a long-term presence of sand martins there.
Sand martins also create nesting colonies inland, on sandy river banks and in gravel pits, these locations facing inevitable harm from human agency. It is the decline in these latter locations that has given rise to the burgeoning creation of artificial nest colonies for sand martins (35-40) the incorrigible human mastery over bird distributions that began when Charles Waterton pioneered artificial nesting niches for birds in the 1820s, including tunnelling in a bank with pipes for sand martins (41). This human mastery reached the level of absurdity when it was reported in 2010 that three-quarters of British barn owls lived in man-made nest boxes, suggesting that they were now largely reliant on such measures (42). Worse still, the nest boxes were not always placed near suitable hunting territory for the owls. Do we want sand martins to become dependent on artificially created nesting colonies? Is it right that the builders of this artificiality have used sound recordings of sand martins to lure birds to them? Are they always located where there is a sufficient food source for their young? In the extreme, what happens if sand martins lose their instinct of how to tunnel for themselves so that their natural nesting places in places like the soft cliffs I watched are no longer used?
The beauty of this flying is completely destroyed by its comically poor ability to land
I’ve watched another bird species go about its natural life, but at the eastern end of West Cliff. The grassland slope there is replaced by sandstone cliffs. You can pick out this 280m stretch of cliff on the Priority Habitat Inventory - Maritime Cliffs and Slopes mapping, as it is the area that for obvious reasons is not bisected by paths (23). Because of the faulted nature of these cliffs, there are ideal small ledges where fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) can be found nesting. They turn up even earlier in the year than sand martins, having spent the preceding months in open sea feeding in flocks (43,44). Early on, every niche on the cliff seemed to be filled, often with pairs of this gull-like bird. It has a white head and underside, thickset neck, grey wings, and grey-yellow beak with pronounced nostrils. Unlike a gull, it flies with straighter, stiffer wings, with only the occasional shallow wingbeat as it glides swiftly and turns in wide circles, riding the updraughts, and showing its white underparts then grey upperparts. The beauty of this flying is completely destroyed by its comically poor ability to land successfully on the ledges, sometimes needing to circulate around for successive attempts. When I could see into them, the nesting sites on the ledges were simple scrapes, sometimes lined with bits of vegetation. There always seemed to be a lot of arguing amongst pairs and rivals, with a characteristic squawking (45).What I couldn’t understand was why, on a successive visit, the fulmars had disappeared from those nests, but then reappeared a week or so later. This happened a few times, and then it seemed to settle down with an occupancy of perhaps only a third of its capacity. I began to despair, as I saw no activity that led me to believe they were breeding. False hope was given one day when in early July I saw a blob of fluffy grey on one of the ledges, but its parent adult was a herring gull (Larus argentatus) that I hadn’t before noticed it nesting there. I persevered, assuming that the fulmar chicks would have to get to a reasonable size before I would be able to notice them, and then on the 30 July, looking down on one of the nests from a vantage point, I saw a grey, fluffy chick with an adult, but I didn't have my camera.
Over the next week, I observed four grey fluffy balls on separate ledges. They seemed to spend their days hunkered down and shedding fluff, while waiting for an adult to return with food that they regurgitate. The adults use their powerful sense of smell to sniff out fish, squid, crustaceans, and sand eels. They are opportunistic feeders, and so they also scavenge discarded fish and carrion. The chicks’ heads went through an unattractive, scrawny phase as white replaced the grey fluffiness over the next two weeks, by which time I began to see feathers beginning to form on developing wings that they occasionally flicked. Within another week, they had lost their scrawny heads and looked more like adults with a sleek white head and white body and fully formed grey wings. When I checked four days later, one of the chicks was no longer there, but I was able to make a video recording of another strenuously flapping its wings while facing the cliff before carefully folding them in (46). When I checked two days ago, a second fulmar had gone, but there were two chicks left who seemed unattended by an adult. I read that chicks fledge at 49 to 58 days, their parents having stopped feeding them about 4 to 5 days beforehand.
The life histories of fulmars may explain why there was such period of uncertainty as to whether I would see any fulmar chicks produced on the cliff. Males and females associate earlier in the year on the ledges for a few weeks, mating often. They then both depart to forage during a pre-laying phase that lasts for up to 23 days. This would explain their disappearances. Also, fulmars return each year to where they were hatched, but they do not breed until they are at least eight to 10 years old. Thus the low occupancy later on, and the small number of chicks, may have been due to the monogamous breeding age pairs, which return to the same nest each year, being in a minority at this location. The lateness of being able to observe chicks may come from the fact that the single, white egg that the female lays is incubated from 47 to 53 days.
Like the sand martins, the fulmars have a high-level view of the activity of people on the beach below, and are unconcerned about them, in the same way that those people are unaware of their presence until they see me attempting to photograph the rock ledges above. I doubt anyone has set out to create an artificial nest site for fulmars. I suppose it is conceivable that a fulmar might make use of an artificial nesting site, like ledges on high buildings or other structures close to the sea, as do kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla)(47) although the freedom and propensity with which fulmars glide in wide circles requires significant air space and thermals. The fulmars on West Cliff are living their natural life. Their use of the cliffs there will persist as long as we have the sense not to continue to degrade the marine environment that feeds them.
The need to have places where wild nature can live its natural life
I wrote above that the more we look into our landscapes for evidence of a self-willed character, the better appreciation we will have of wild nature, and that from that kind of detail comes knowledge, and from knowledge comes ecological understanding, but also great joy at the wonder of wild nature. The protracted observation of the wild flower communities on West Cliff, and of the natural lives of the sand martins and fulmars, has engrossed me. It has exemplified the intrinsic properties of wild nature, the intrinsic volition to live and reproduce. I did not set out with the intention of it proving that, and I am fortunate to be of an age where I have the leisure time to pursue it. Everything about the self-will of existence of what I have observed screams out for greater recognition for the need to have places where wild nature can live its natural life. If we are to see the greater complexity in ecological interactions that come from scale, rather than the discrete locations described here, then there must be a conscious decision to either withdraw our presence, or commit to never becoming a presence. An example of the latter is Surtsey Island, an uninhabited volcanic island off the southern coast of Iceland that first appeared in 1963, and for which the decision was made to observe long term the unhindered natural processes whereby it is colonised by wild nature (48). The astonishing arrival of new plant and animal life is deserving of its own later telling.
Mark Fisher 31 August 2024
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https://bwars.com/index.php/bee/apidae/eucera-longicornis
(28) Whitby Naturalists’ Club Annual Report 2018
https://whitbynaturalists.uk/data/wn/2018.pdf
(29) Upgang Ravine, Ecosystem and Habitat Conservation, Whitby Naturalists’ Club
https://whitbynaturalists.uk/1_10_conservation.html
(30) Appendix 1: Conservation Objectives. North Yorkshire and Cleveland Heritage Coast Management Plan 2015 – 2020. North Yorkshire and Cleveland Coastal Forum Partnership North York Moors National Park Authority, North Yorkshire County Council, Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council, North Yorkshire and Cleveland Coastal Forum. Pg 30
(31) Kessler, T. C., Klint, K. E. S., Nilsson, B., & Bjerg, P. L. (2012). Characterization of sand lenses embedded in tills. Quaternary Science Reviews 53: 55-71
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379112003125
(32) Sand martin (Riparia riparia) Woodland Trust
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/birds/sand-martin/
(33) Riparia riparia, Animal Diversity Web
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Riparia_riparia/
(34) XC762469 - Sand Martin Flight Call - Riparia riparia, Simon Elliott
(35) Getting Cold Feet, Solent Reserves Blog, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, 27 February 2013
https://solentreserves.wordpress.com/tag/artificial-sand-martin-nesting-bank/
(36) Sand martin success this summer, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust 5 September 2017
https://www.wwt.org.uk/news-and-stories/news/sand-martin-success-this-summer/
(37) Species of the week: sand martin, Ian Barthorpe, RSPB 16 April 2018
(38) Sandcastle homes unveiled for sand martins, Surrey Wildlife Trust 27 March 2021
https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/news/sandcastle-homes-unveiled-sand-martins
(39) An artificial sand martin bank – with space for a potential 100 nesting pairs – is being built at WWT Washington Wetland Centre, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust 28 September 2023
(40) Artificial nesting bank brings sand martins breeding hope, Jason Arunn Murugesu, BBC News, North East 3 April 2024
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c03rrzx7pn8o
(41) When nature dies - the impact of the human species, Self-willed land July 2015
www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/traditional_knowledge.htm
(42) Barn owls confound the conservation industry, Self-willed land December 2010
www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/barn_owl.htm
(43) Fulmarus glacialis - northern fulmar, Animal Diversity Website
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Fulmarus_glacialis/
(44) Northern Fulmar, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Fulmar/overview
(45) XC916600 - Northern Fulmar call- Fulmarus
glacialis - Simon Elliott
https://xeno-canto.org/587995
(46) Fulmar chick flapping wings, Whitby West Cliff 27 August 2024
www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/fulmar_chick_wing_flapping.mp4
(47) A New Lease on Life: Kittiwakes embrace modern living and join the national grid, Flo Peyton Jones, Marine Data Exchange, February 13, 2024
(48) Surtsey, World Heritage List, UNESCO
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1267/
url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/intrinsic.htm
www.self-willed-land.org.uk mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk