The Concrete and the Clay

I watched a convoy of nine lorries lined up on the road, hazards flashing as they inched impatiently towards the front of the queue. An enormous conveyor belt crane reached into a mountain of sugar beet, grabbed a lorry load and dumped it daintily in.

Most of the agricultural work here in East Anglia is carried out by contractors. They work fast and furious. Sometimes I hear them when I'm in bed at night. They leave tracks and traces: excrement, tissues, beer cans in the hedge. The lorries hurtle along the lanes leaving clay skid marks and a trail of bouncing beets that point the way to the British Sugar refinery at Bury St Edmunds.

Despite the appearance of monoculture there is scope for nature conservation alongside the predominant beet and wheat and oil seed rape. Last summer I was ticked off by yellow wagtails for walking near their nests among the same beets I have just seen harvested. In the recent snow I could see three grey partridges. There are goldfinches, yellowhammers, tree sparrows and corn buntings in the hedge. Most of these birds are fast declining. Since the 1970s tree sparrows for example have declined by 94%. My tin goldfinch clockwork toy is a charming piece of nostalgia, but I have just signed a petition http://vimeo.com/58470612 to retain EU funding for our farmland's living, breathing wild things.