Beddington Farmlands

Did the farmlands yesterday afternoon before heading back to the Old Vic after work. It was pretty quiet, not much of note, a couple of Peregrine, a few Lapwings hanging on in there and a few autumn waterfowl Ebird list here. The whole area seems particularly affected by this year's drought with several burnt out areas due to wildfires (including Horse Field and an area along the path alongside 100 acre), lots of dead young trees and most other trees showing drought stress, the wet grassland area is very dry and by the looks of it all of the old sludge beds have dried out too. 

Green Sandpipers and Lapwings (from a visit there a week ago)

Little Egrets etc on the North Lake 

It's all looking a bit like the Upside Down - seems like the dark side is certainly winning over there at the moment as a result of continual delays with the restoration (following a burst of progress which has now stopped) and the drought (and lack of emergency response to it).  

Brown Hairstreak from last week

A dried out wetland during the carbon influenced climate crisis and the incinerator (pumping 300,000 tonnes of carbon a year into the atmosphere)- there are few places in the UK where the world's main environmental problems are so condensed and so clearly exposed. I think it's safe to say there is no chance at all that this reserve will be complete by the end of the 2023 legal deadline. With Viridor having now sold the restoration to a holding company Valencia (Formerly/ a subsidiary of Frank Solutions Ltd) the next development will be any planning application re-submission that they put in (which will presumably aim to extend both the deadline and water down the scope of the restoration- no doubt the council/government will give them anything they want as usual with minimal/token concessions). Whether they can carry out their coup de grace without either the council or the holding company breaking any laws will be scrutinised very carefully but ultimately will be a largely fruitless task attempting to legally challenge that (but one that needs to be done for symbolic reasons- just to shine a light  on it). The main lesson to learn from all this in the context of the current cost of living crisis, soaring inflation, escalating inequality, pandemic threat and the climate and ecological emergency is the 'system' is reaching maximum corruption/collapse/late stage and every individual who wants to ace the collapse and the re-boot of the new system (which will presumably be a computer based system)  needs to prepare for collapse (increase personal resilience/self sufficiency/off grid capability, get to the top of some business or organisation so you can collapse on top of others,  diversify income, own land, reduce debt to 0.5 to 1 debt ratio, minimise exposure to collapse,  build multi-indices embryonic parallel structures, ensure security, spend more energy and time in the moneyless society etc)  and help accelerate that collapse by shining lights on the corruption, the complete impotence of existing political structures, the absolute farce of 'democracy' and the need for a new global computer system (a social-environment-economic credit score system that governs corporations and societies) and world government. Before that happens there's the small matter of world war three which will be the process that world government evolves from  (a war of individual disempowerment (via low carbon narratives etc), transfer of wealth, chaos, collapse, authoritarianism, social disorder and climate and ecological chaos- and a bit of traditional guns and tanks stuff and maybe the odd nuclear detonation).