A view from the jungle

I've been in the jungle. Not any old jungle - and with no convenient walkway to effect an escape if it all got a bit much. No, this jungle was deep inside the Yasuni National Park. This is what it looks like at daybreak:

I know we can be bombarded with demands to protect the environment, treasure its diversity, make sure we keep enough trees to keep us all breathing. But, having spend a few days somewhere that, at the moment, is truly remote, I begin to understand some of the challenges. 

It is surprisingly noisy. At night the frogs croak you to sleep. In the morning the parrots and the howler monkeys make sure you wake with the sunrise. I stayed close to a lake: at first glance the tea-black water is still and mysterious. Then the hump of a turtle appears, the plop of a fish, the beady eyes of a caiman. (These are the black caiman, the big ones, and aggressive). 

Down a small creek we saw a pair of giant otters - so rare they are now classified as endangered. A metropolis of insect life, including a tarantula and a small beetle that squirts poisonous wee. We saw tiny flycatchers, multi-colours parakeets, toucans (how do they not fall over, with beak that big), vultures and a harpy eagle.

Any old jungle? Possibly, except this corner of the rainforest escaped an ice age and so has some of the greatest diversity of plants, trees, insects, birds and mammals in the world.  

And, deep under the ground, is oil. Already the oil companies and circling. 

I stayed in an eco-project, deep inside the National Park. The only way to get there is by boat (for hours) and - at this time of year when the water levels are low - by walking for over an hour. Not even a track for a 4x4 to pollute the air. Water is purified on site. Waste is filtered. We had to use soap and shampoo provided so that no unwelcome chemical could pollute the place.

It has been set up by the local indigenous community, and is run entirely by them, thus providing employment for one group of people - and making sure that they will continue to treasure the forest, not only for the benefit of those of us privileged enough to visit, but also to protect these precious trees and birds and mammals. And surely they are the best people to run it, for they know one toxic tree from a tame one, can spot a tiny monkey from 150 metres, and know exactly which log to sit on and which is home to fire ants.

And it's stunningly beautiful. Please, big oil men, put your greed to one side, just for once.

Sharing your home with wild life.

This is a seasonal post - as some wild life is looking for somewhere warm to spend the winter. And so am I.

Let's be clear. I'm not talking dogs and cats here. Nor hamsters and guinea pigs and budgies. No, I'm talking wild life.

I live on the edge of a market town - I won't tell you exactly where, because I go awol from time to time and it's bonkers to advertise which house will be empty. All you need to know is that I can walk across fields within five minutes of closing my front door.

There are implications in the garden.

I know there are foxes in cities - do they have the same distinctive smell as those in the country? When I walk down the garden in the morning, I always know if one has visited in the night from the pong. Though it doesn't happen often - there's plenty of rabbits in the forest. One summer there were badgers, taking a liking to the fallen crab apples (from my neighbour's tree) and eating so much fruit they were mildly sozzled, which was funny (except for the piles of poo left on the grass). I've had deer, too - muntjac deer who, you may not know, have a particular liking for rosebuds. (Good thing I've never tried entering roses in a show!)

Frogs, hedgehogs - anything is welcome if it eats the slugs and snails. I've also had the occasional slow worm. And birds - oh the birds! I can spend hours by my back door, just watching them.

So you see, I think I've made friends with the wild life in my garden.

And in the house? There are flies in summer, of course. And crane flies, midges, moths, butterflies, and numerous other flying things. Plenty of spiders. Do I evict them all? No - most do me no harm and seem quite happy where they are. I have been known to zap the occasional fly that has really got on my nerves, and will wallop a wasp that lacks the good sense to go out the window. But the rest can stay.

Then, after the harvest and as the nights grow cold (around now), I sometimes get a resident field mouse, come in out of the cold for the winter. One I can manage - he generally hides in the cupboard under the stairs and escapes back to the fields in the spring. I make sure there's no food left out to tempt him into the kitchen (mice wee as they run along, which isn't the healthiest thing in the kitchen). But a family of mice - there I draw the line. I've a humane trap to take them outside, and if that doesn't sort it then I'm sorry, they just have to go the hard way. Rats - I really can't make friends with rats (though I didn't do badly in Laos!).

There's the occasional bird that gets lost in the house - but that's not really a countryside thing. But I have had bats - three times. There must be a colony near here as they dive-bomb the back of my house in the evening, feasting (I think) on mosquitoes. Occasionally one gets lost and ends up in my bedroom.

The dos and don'ts of getting bats to go outside:

Don't turn the light on. Poor thing will flap round and round the light and be truly terrified - much more than you are.

Do - open the window, very wide.

Do go out of the room and close the door (with the light off). By the time you've made a cup of tea the bat will have found her way out.

And you? Who else shares their home with a creature or two?