Steve Rees has lived all his life in the village and has probably spent more time than anyone watching wildlife in our fields and woods and especially on the river bank. We really enjoy reading his Nature Notes in the North Aston (village) News which you can find here.
He recently wrote this short piece...
Wild about the farm.
With Steve Rees
James, as did his dad before him, grew up on the farm - and so did me and my brothers- being born in the village and spending all our out of school time down the fields collecting stuff and fishing in the back brook which forms the north border of the farm. Our dad was the water bailiff for the river and we were strictly banned from fishing on the river until we were sixteen years old, me being the youngest was left on the brook on my own for a few years.
Back in the 1970’s it was still a good stream with a few deep bends and clear running
water.
The fish used to come up from the river and lay in the quiet pools in the summer, and with a lump of cheese and a slice of bread I could happily spend all day there catching small chub and big dace and even once a lovely queen of the stream, a grayling of 1lb. It has changed a bit now and runs very shallow and brown and I haven’t seen anyone fishing there for years.
The farm has always been a very diverse and wonderful home for flora and fauna of all kinds.
Every March we wait with baited breath for our curlew to come home to us to breed and it is always a big competition to see who hears their ghostly sad call first… honestly James nearly always beats me. The swallows are the next to arrive down on the flood meadows before moving along to Coldharbour farm buildings to breed and make a lovely sight while hunting among the cows and sheep for flies.
We have muntjac, roe and the odd fallow deer on a regular basis in the undisturbed
woods on our farm and have caught them on our camera traps on many occasions.
Most of this probably just sounds like normal Oxfordshire countryside wildlife, but to us it is a very special place that we are proud to call our home.
James and Vicky are trying very hard to run a business, make a living for themselves
and for all that work here, but also to be real stewards for a small part of England where nature can thrive on a working farm.
As soon as the fishing season opens again, I will be down on the river with my bread, I’m still convinced it could hold a record chub.
Regards for now,
Steve of North Aston
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