Mess is best

Untidiness suits farmland birds such as the yellowhammer, just coming into breeding plumage. For decades, however, the prevailing mantra has been to neaten up our countryside – something that author Ben Macdonald diagnoses as Ecological Tidiness Disorder. To help the yellowhammer, we need more weedy arable fields, scuffedup pasture, spilt seeds and unruly wildflower margins, preferably with rewilded, overgrown hedges, at the bottom of which the female will soon be nestbuilding.

Close by, her gaudy mate sings his short but sweet song, over and over.

FIND OUT MORE Information about rewilding: rewildingbritain.org.uk