Life and Death on the Sherborne Brook

It’s been an odd few days – death and life intertwined as sometimes happens perversely at the height of Spring.

Following our concerns about white deer culling and Nigel the deerstalker’s reassurances, life took its constantly surprising course a day later, and we were faced with death. A white doe was seen struggling on the hill on the North Bank of the Broadwater – listless, often stationary, rarely moving. Nigel was called and assessed it as an elderly female at the end of her life, and pregnant. With very little body fat and few teeth, there was no way it was going to sustain a new life, so it was euthanised. Literally, put out of its misery. You can be assured Nigel does not take these situations lightly. So life ended on a spring afternoon.

Yesterday, another death – a barn owl hit by traffic at the east end of the village. Amanda found it and reported it with these photos – in death, even, these creatures seem exotic and beautiful, with some sort of magic residing still in the frail body.

But… all is not lost – there are numerous barn owls around, and Andrew Danson pictured this one this morning, alive and busy with its patrol.

The barn owls remain plentiful, feeding hard in preparation for breeding, though a surprising number are hit by traffic. I have also had reports of short-eared owls in recent weeks near Eastleach – they have now headed off to Russia to breed, I’m told. Life wins.

Some concern was registered this morning – a ewe struggling in labour on the field beside the road up to Home Farm. By the time Iain the shepherd had got there, things had resolved themselves, and the birth occurred. Life wins again.

Finally, and I hope you don’t feel this is inappropriate, on Thursday it is dear Margaret Shaw’s funeral. A villager through and through. She loved this place and all creatures that lived in it. Our heartfelt condolences to Chris.

Life and death this week, then. Bitter and sweet. Every life celebrated, even in death, but sadness is woven into this time, along with the delight of spring. An eternal balance, I suppose, but I am a poor philosopher. Maybe all it shows is there is reason to carefully welcome in the sights and sounds of these sunshine-filled spring days, and the light they provide our lives. Without that celebration, darkness will think it has won. And we can’t allow that.