BARRED from the woods like everyone else I have taken to cycling along quiet lanes through the farmland along the western fringe of the Forest. They have been rides full of interest. The hedge bottoms are sparkling now with violets, primroses, celandines, wood anemones, cowslips, stitchwort and all the flowers of spring.
Yellowhammers sing from telephone wires and hedgerow trees. Skylarks, too many to count, pour down their song from high in the sky. Linnets chatter and sing and the occasional tree sparrow flits from the hedge as I cycle past.
One one magical morning the liquid bubbling song of a curlew sounded in the still air. To the west the view extended over the Wye Valley to the wooded plateau around Trellech whilst further north were the dappled, rolling hills beyond Monmouth and further still the Black Mountains, snow-capped and shining white as the early morning sun broke through.
In the fields the lack of sheep and lambs and the black remains of pyres cast a shadow on the mind but spring is a time of hope and renewal and you cannot help but feel better on a brilliant spring morning.
Another thing that set me off on these rides was the number of farmland birds I was seeing.
Yellowhammers, skylarks and linnets may not seem glamorous birds in the way that red kites or wild geese are but the fact is that all three species have had their numbers more than halved over the past 30 years. And tree sparrows, the chestnut headed country cousin of the house sparrow, have reduced in numbers over the same time by no less than 95 per cent. There is only one tree sparrow now for every 20 that there were in 1970.
We are lucky that around the edges of the Forest we still have farmland that supports good numbers of these birds although tree sparrows are only hanging on in a few places such as around St Briavels and Guscar Rocks. I started plotting on a map where I saw or heard yellowhammers and soon had over 30 territories marked out in a couple of square miles.
The yellowhammer is simple to recognise the male being bright yellow like a canary and usually occupying a prominent perch. Its song too is easy to pick out, often written in bird books as 'A little bit of bread and no cheese.' Even in the heat of high summer when most birds have gone silent it can still be heard from the hedgerows.
In the Forest yellowhammers nest not only on farmland but also in areas of waste with scattered bushes like Clearwell Meend and Crabtree Hill. They used to nest more in areas of young trees but no longer seem to do so and they are now absent from most of the woodlands.
What has caused the decline nationally in farmland birds has been changes in farming practice. More intensive use of the land, the removal of hedgerows, more effective harvesting which leaves less split grain in the fields, the trend towards autumn sowing which means few winter stubbles and the use of chemicals to eradicate weeds (wild flowers) all contribute to there being less food available for farmland birds in winter.
In addition a ground nesting bird such as the skylark finds that the fast growing autumn sown cereals make an unsuitable place to nest in the spring and in many places in the country the skylark's joyful, cascading song is now seldom heard.
Just to add insult to injury these changes in the farmed countryside that have decimated not just birds but much of our native wildlife have been paid for with our money, given to agriculture by way of subsidies.
Whatever the colour of the government is after the election it is high time they got a grip of this and made sure our money is used in the countryside to achieve what we want. But don't hold your breath...