Art in the field

The journey to rewilding has provided an abundance of inspiration for Hannah Dale

- Janet Menzies

HAVING BEAVERS at the bottom of your garden is a huge plus for a wildlife artist. So when Hannah Dale and her husband Jack decided to introduce a pair on to their Lincolnshire farm as part of rewilding, Dale couldn't help but be influenced in her art. She is clearly enchanted by their antics. “The beavers are transforming their site. We think they have built several lodges,” she reveals. “There’s one we can just see that’s accessed by an underwater tunnel that comes up in the scrub. And they have coppiced the willow on one of the banks. Without the beavers all the heavy rain we’ve been having would flash through and cause floods downstream but now it is being retained on our land. We are hoping they will breed this year.”