Inhabitants of the hedge
From inspiring reads to innovative projects, delve deeper into rewilding
A rather plain and unassuming brown bird (birders call these hard-to-distinguish species LBJS: Little Brown Jobs), the nightingale’s song is one of nature’s most celebrated, inspiring fairy tales, poetry and even an opera.
A harbinger of spring known as the May tree, Beltane tree and the faerie tree, this thorny shrub has long been associated with fertility and wild spirits. At Beltane, the May Queen wears a crown of hawthorn blossom while young women keep sprigs to attract a husband. Hawthorn is still used in handfasting rituals to this day.
As larvae, the goliath Goat Moth (the UK’S heaviest) spends up to five years feeding inside broadleaf tree trunks such as alder, willow and ash before pupating and emerging in mid-summer. As they feed, fermented sap drips down the tree – red admiral butterflies find it particularly appealing and appear to get drunk on it.
Bramble, thimbleberry, bumblekite, wait-a-bit: the humble blackberry goes by many names. Unbelievably, there are more than 400 micro-varieties growing wild in the UK alone (it’s such a complex branch of botany, the study of brambles even has its own word: batology). The berry at the tip of the stalk is the sweetest of them all.
Our only indigenous apple species, these underrated thorny trees – twisting into hedgerows and producing clusters of tiny green, red or yellow apples – are altogether different to the eaters and cookers found in orchards. Too bitter to eat raw, they make a deliciously tart jelly.
Arguably, no mammal has suffered more from hedgerow loss and habitat fragmentation as the hedgehog. Once a common sight, the hedgehog population has been falling for years and years. Actions such as planting a garden hedge, creating access holes to neighbouring plots and avoiding slug pellets are all ways to protect these prickly characters.
A prolific singer, these common hedgerow (and garden) birds have a gloriously varied repertoire from a slow-tempo, fluted melody to help attract a mate to their full-scale rattling alarm call, bursting out of a hedge in a fit of pique.
Jo Tinsley is the founder and editor of Ernest, a journal for enquiring minds. Her book,
The Slow Traveller: An Intentional Path to Mindful Adventures is out in June.
Britain’s only native dormouse, the gingery-brown hazel dormouse uses hedgerows to move between woodlands. These tiny arboreal rodents spend most of their time living (well, mainly sleeping) in trees and shrubs, only venturing to the ground to gather nesting materials or to hibernate in winter.
Several species of British bat use hedgerows as flight paths for commuting between roosts and foraging zones. The barbastelle, a specialist moth hunter, feeds along hedgerows during the summer; while brown long-eared bats use them as fly-ways, navigating along hedges and rarely crossing open areas.