Derek Gow is transforming his traditional Devon farm into a 300-acre rewilding haven for beavers, water voles, lynx, wildcats, harvest mice, wild boar and more – species that are either extinct or have become rare in the UK – and showing what farming of the future could look like I’m up about half past seven. I let the dogs out for a run, make their breakfast then make my own breakfast. Then I go around to check that all the animals on the farm are pointing up the right way.
Every day can produce a changed experience. You see the uplift of nature as it draws breath after centuries of abuse and starts to recover. Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter The birds are one of the first things that tell you the times are a-changin’.
Skylarks are singing this year; I’d never seen them on the farm before. We have flocks of hundreds of goldfinches now, rising, turning, sometimes being pursued by a sparrowhawk or a goshawk, which is just too big and too clumsy to catch them. Those predators are coming back and staying and breeding because we’ve got a small mammal population reforming in the grasslands.
They’ve got grass that grows and falls over. It’s not cut for hay, so it becomes this citadel for the short-tailed voles or the wood mouse and the bank voles. You’ve got many flowers, many insects.
This year, for the first time on our land, marbled white butterflies appeared. My favourite.
