Country diary: An island of wild life among the empty pastures | Paul Evans

The Marches, Shropshire: Here, the elderberries reflect the world upside-down, while swallows and ravens carve up the skyBelow the Old Oswestry hillfort, people dressed in black stand silently on the street to watch a hearse set off. Sixteen swallows do the crotchet and quaver thing on telephone wires, while three others zip through a hopeful sky. Walking clockwise up there, the earthworks are bright with hips and haws. Elderberries bear a glint of the reflected world, upside down. Each berry holds a purple stain, waiting to splat like wine-spit from a bird.Beyond the wilder circles of the fort's embankments, and under the same clear, early autumn sky, the world is dulled. A few rooks visit the expanse of stubble fields and the pastures have an empty green, not at all like the rough, rude, rangy verdure up here. Down below, a man in a tractor is meticulously flailing all the berries from the hedges. Continue reading...