Butterflies flit across my vision wherever I go this summer. Screams of swifts have been unusually audible in cities. Hedges are laden with blackberries. Hordes of plump wood pigeons devour my kale. Fruit trees bow with plums and apples. There are wasps galore and each morning I’m woken by a raucous new neighbour: a herring gull that’s moved on to the factory roof next door.
Wild nature, in Britain this year, is visibly abundant. Most of us share similar stories. But is there really a blizzard of butterflies? Are there actually more swifts? Is nature in recovery after years of decline? Or is this shifting baseline syndrome in action, whereby we are so inured to decimated levels of nature that we are deceived by tiny blips of hope?
