Changing with the SEASONS

Throughout the year, a wealth of wildlife reveals itself in a tranquil English orchard.

- Benedict Macdonald

Deep in the Malvern Hills, a traditional orchard stands proud as a place of extraordinary abundance in the barren farmland around. For six years, fellow naturalist Nicholas Gates and I have been studying its wildlife. This biodiverse haven was once a sight that would have covered the one-time fruit-growing counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and much of Gloucestershire, Devon and Somerset.

It’s January – under a soft snow blanket, the orchard, its trees bent under the weight of ice-clad mistletoe, heaves and chatters with winter thrushes. Fieldfares, redwings and song thrushes descend from the trees in their thousands and the static fizz and pop of starlings can be heard everywhere. When the farmlands all around are dead and devoid of life, here it’s winter feast time and the banquet hall is full.

Orchards were once a staple of rural life, much as they remain in the older farming systems of Eastern Europe. We cultivated most of them here in Tudor times, yet the older history is infinitely more fascinating. The apple trees in Britain’s orchards today do not, in fact, originate from our native wild crab apples. They originate, instead, from a remote mountain valley in Kazakhstan. Here, it is believed that early Silk Road traders (and their horses) vectored the Kazakh apples westwards towards the Mediterranean, where they were grown by enterprising Greeks and Romans.