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| Country diary: we have reached an arrangement with our mole | Country diary: we have reached an arrangement with our mole |
| (12 days later) | |
| Claxton, Norfolk The front lawn has been contested territory between the humans who assume they own it and the tiny creature that truthfully has possession | |
| Mark Cocker | |
| Thu 4 Jan 2018 05.30 GMT | |
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| After heavy rain our front lawn looks nothing more than a level, evenly cut sward devoid of interest. Yet its singularity lies precisely in that flatness. | After heavy rain our front lawn looks nothing more than a level, evenly cut sward devoid of interest. Yet its singularity lies precisely in that flatness. |
| For the past four months that same turf has been the setting for a contest between the humans who assume they own it and the 100g creature that truthfully has possession. It is a mole that arrived last autumn and then proceeded to pile up – in about 90 molehills to date – about a quarter of a ton of soil. | For the past four months that same turf has been the setting for a contest between the humans who assume they own it and the 100g creature that truthfully has possession. It is a mole that arrived last autumn and then proceeded to pile up – in about 90 molehills to date – about a quarter of a ton of soil. |
| How mole numbers can be estimated I’m not sure, but our national total was put at 31m in 1995, and such a figure implies a cumulative earth-moving operation involving millions of tons every year. Given that moles are virtually universal below an elevation of 1,000m (3,300ft), it means that these little parcels of the underworld are heaved out over much of Britain. How strange that a creature which barely sees or visits the Earth’s surface has so much impact upon it. | How mole numbers can be estimated I’m not sure, but our national total was put at 31m in 1995, and such a figure implies a cumulative earth-moving operation involving millions of tons every year. Given that moles are virtually universal below an elevation of 1,000m (3,300ft), it means that these little parcels of the underworld are heaved out over much of Britain. How strange that a creature which barely sees or visits the Earth’s surface has so much impact upon it. |
| In return for all this labour we have made a bitter enemy of old Moley. For centuries a whole human lineage – the professional mole-catcher – was and is still devoted to his slaughter. True it did once cause the death of a monarch – William of Orange’s horse threw its charge when it stumbled in a mole-hole – and true, the soil bacteria in mole hills are said to ruin silage crops. Yet is the killing really necessary? I vividly recall scenes in the Derbyshire lanes of my childhood when every tine on the barbed-wire carried a desiccated mole corpse, with 50 in a row a personal record. | In return for all this labour we have made a bitter enemy of old Moley. For centuries a whole human lineage – the professional mole-catcher – was and is still devoted to his slaughter. True it did once cause the death of a monarch – William of Orange’s horse threw its charge when it stumbled in a mole-hole – and true, the soil bacteria in mole hills are said to ruin silage crops. Yet is the killing really necessary? I vividly recall scenes in the Derbyshire lanes of my childhood when every tine on the barbed-wire carried a desiccated mole corpse, with 50 in a row a personal record. |
| Here I have worked out that the best way to live in harmony with our mole is to remove the earth as soon and as carefully as possible. If you shovel it up any old how it seems to trigger the beast into more earthworks and you end up with as many new hills as you originally cleared. Over time the excavations have subsided to a minimum, the lawn has resumed its even temperament and we have been supplied with the best topsoil for our veg-growing patch. | Here I have worked out that the best way to live in harmony with our mole is to remove the earth as soon and as carefully as possible. If you shovel it up any old how it seems to trigger the beast into more earthworks and you end up with as many new hills as you originally cleared. Over time the excavations have subsided to a minimum, the lawn has resumed its even temperament and we have been supplied with the best topsoil for our veg-growing patch. |
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