Five years ago the media descended upon Yorkshire in droves, despatched to report on empty reservoirs and dried up streams. The media is back in droves again, only now the story is about too much water. Now, the reporters are looking for the latest village to be swamped with floods, the next settlement along the Rivers Derwent and Ouse where sandbags are being shipped in by the thousand.
In the south of the county, the River Rother has burst its banks, the earthern floodbanks visible only as a thin ribbon of snaking green on a cloth of mud-brown water. The controlled washlands, deliberately inundated as part of the flood management plan, are full to capacity. At Whiston Meadows, the water spreads across the road, the brook, usually home to a good sized colony of water voles, identifiable only by the stone bridge under which it flows.
Wildlife is adapting to the new landscape. Along the temporary shoreline, new water vole runs can be found. Sadly, their old tunnels by the brook side, stocked with winter food supplies, will be lost. A tiny field vole leaps in the water by our feet, swimming out furiously like a clockwork toy, to the branches of a half-submerged hazel bush. Once there, it clambers up into the cleft of a branch Joint and grooms itself, before jumping in the water again and setting off into the new jungle of twigs and sticks.
An old broken fence post, just a few inches protruding above the water, is smothered with woodlice, clambering over each other in a seething mass as those closest to the lapping waters seek to scramble higher, pushing those beneath still lower as they do. For a flock of long-tailed tits it is business as usual, looping along the hedgerow, constantly cheeping to each other to maintain contact, checking each nook and cranny for food.
It has stopped raining now, although more is forecast. The media is looking to the next story, checking out of the hotels in York and off to wherever the editor sends them. Meanwhile, the wildlife, with no sandbags supplied, no insurance and no media spotlight, will cope with the aftermath on its own.
