I have just been in a webinar run by Natural England and the BBC, giving an insight into the filming of the latest nature series fronted by the legendary SDA. If you haven’t seen any of it then stop what you are doing right now and get on to iPlayer. It is like a moving artwork, set to incredible music which just makes you proud to call this chilly and damp archipelago home.
Apart from revealing secrets about how to film inside an ants’ nest, the purpose of the webinar is to encourage us all to treasure what is right in front of our noses, and to act to protect it. Nature in the UK doesn’t just need benign neglect….it needs all of us to behave differently in order to halt its decline, and help its recovery. This is the rallying cry of “Wild Isles”.
It’s what drives us to try and protect the amazing habitat that is Merrow Downs. It will soon be orchid season, the sky larks are already afloat and vocal, and I am still hopeful of spotting a badger cub one evening.
Why would anyone threaten this landscape? Why would a self-proclaimed “Eco School” (!) want to dig up and light up this landscape? Why not capitalise instead on what makes the grass chalkland of the Urnfield and Merrow Downs special? Do we really want our young people to disregard the natural world, simply for their own convenience??
Inspired by “Wild Isles”, I think we should fight for our nature.
Tell us what you love about Merrow Downs. 
