- Book information
- A Buzz in the Meadow by Dave Goulson
- Published by: Jonathan Cape
- Price: £16.99
An idyllic farmhouse, challenging thoughts on conservation, an author who sounds like a great guy. What's not to hate in A Buzz in the Meadow?
I HATED Dave Goulson as soon as I read the opening words of his latest book, A Buzz in the Meadow: "In 2003 I bought a derelict farm deep in the heart of rural France, together with thirteen hectares of surrounding meadow."
With each amusing and insightful chapter, my fury grew, as Goulson focused on particular examples of the wildlife around his horrible Charentais haven, and then broadened out to look at both the scientific and conservation aspects of the beast in question. When I thought he had missed out some research on the animal he was talking about, I turned the page, and there it was. In two cases, it turned out he had actually done the studies I was thinking about.
Although the book is not about how to rebuild a farmhouse, there is some annoyingly useful advice here. Do not use a dry hollow as a dump for gravel, as you may have inadvertently filled in a home for newts and will be obliged to spend the next few years battling moles to create a new pond. And if you have deathwatch beetle in the rafters, leave them be and enjoy the sound of their tap-tap-tap: it will take a long time for them to munch their way through the house.
The final sections sound the alarm about the damage we are wreaking on the planet, and the way that complex ecological cascades mean that apparently small changes can produce dramatic effects that will alter our lives, and not for the better. Goulson's exhortation that we should get down on our hands and knees and look is one that should be repeated at every level of education.
To cap it all, Goulson comes over as a really nice bloke. Scattered through the book – part memoir, part natural history, part popular science – are accounts of his own academic career, described in a charming, self-effacing manner.
He includes his bad times being unemployed as well as some really interesting research that casts doubt on work by the influential ecological geneticist E. B. Ford. Ford spent years trying to work out the genetics behind spots on butterfly wings; Goulson's PhD suggested that the spots were primarily induced by temperature, not genes.
Like I said, I hated Dave Goulson. But I ended up loving him. You will too. Buy this book, give it as a present. It is required reading for being a human in the 21st century.
This article appeared in print under the headline "A way with nature"
Matthew Cobb is professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, UK
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