Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 2487

The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2487 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I dropped them at the gate, each of them giving me a peck on the cheek as they left. I was so glad I didn’t have boys. Then it was off to the university and ordeal by academia. I don’t know which is worse, being a student and paying for the torment or, being a teacher and being paid for the torment. I’ll leave that with you.

“Ah, Professor, you have a budget meeting at ten, and a staff meeting this afternoon. You’re also doing a guest lecture on dormice at seven.”

What a wonderful prospect that was. My own fault, I suggested we do a guest lecture every so often which is non academic and open to the public. Guess who got to do the first one. Oh well...

I won’t dwell on the day at university. Since Simon gave me ammunition to roast the accounts department, they’ve been much more helpful and attentive. News of the impending harvest mouse film has revived interest in our department and me in particular. So far this week I’ve turned down four requests for interviews. As part of the deal Erin cut with the BBC, I’ve agreed to do three interviews with the Beeb before I speak to anyone else. Did I mention the book? I’ve co-authored it with Alan, he did the photos, I do the words. It’ll be out for Christmas when the film also will be shown. Funnily enough, it’s being published by the BBC.

Because there are so many high profile transgender people these days, I’m very much old news, so it just describes me as biologist, academic, film maker and parent. Apparently, because Professor Brian Cox is so popular, they wanted to name me as Professor Cathy Watts on the programme. I told them they could at the end credits but not the beginning. Mine is much more David Attenborough styled and in a similar format to the dormouse. According to Erin, they asked her what other British mammal I could do one on, and she told them, dozens. They were most interested on one about the Scottish wildcat, or the pine marten. Talk about challenging.

That’s a project for next year. Now as to the interviews, it’s the usual stuff for someone with a book or a film to sell, or in my case both. ‘Start the Week’ is the first, followed by some nature programme I’d never heard of before and then one for Radio Solent—our local station. If our friendly particle physicist can find time to do it, I’m sure I can.

I dashed home from the staff meeting having arranged for Jacquie to collect the girls, I then rushed upstairs, showered and dressed, ate a small tea and then shot off to the university to do my lecture. I was introduced by Tom who pointed out these talks were free but those who wished to give were free to do so, any money accruing being offered to conserving wild mouse populations and habitats.

Because I’m getting used to doing this sort of thing, there are fewer mistakes, so the outtakes are fewer—damn—I’ll have to work at the talk instead of just playing clips of me falling over logs as per the dormouse film.

“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow academics and undergraduates and anyone else I might have missed, it gives me great pleasure to introduce one of the most skilful field biologists I’ve ever seen in action. It sounds easy, go off and watch dormice or harvest mice—so how many of you have done that?” No one put their hand up. “So you get the idea. It’s difficult, very difficult, but perhaps Cathy will explain how to find them later on.

“We cannot emphasise enough how important keeping habitats in good condition is, and how much is being damaged by agriculture or housing as we compete for space and resources with local wildlife. Overall we’ve lost forty per cent of species since the last war—forty percent. That is disgraceful. We’re wiping out bees and hen harriers, the one, bumble bees in particular is so important in pollinating commercial crops and the other is indicative of what is happening in the wild. At the rate were moving bumble bees will be extinct in under a decade and hen harriers in two or three years.

“They may not be important to you but just think where your flour will come from in the future, and without it, there’ll be no bread and that would be unthinkable. Hen harriers won’t stop you having bread but it will be a sad day if they disappear from out skies. Remember, they release two in August with radio trackers on them and lost them both the same day. Clearly something catastrophic happened, probably with a gun. These birds are indicator species, like dormice and harvest mice, telling us if our environment is healthy or not and their destruction because a few wealthy people like to pay to have tame pheasants stuck on the end of their guns.

“I’m sure I’m preaching to the converted however I’ll stop there and introduce our speaker, Professor Cathy Watts, whom I’ve been privileged to know for quite a few years as both a colleague and a friend. Professor Watts...”

It was more fun than meeting the accountants but until I warmed up into performer level, a bit tedious. I showed clips from the film including some outtakes and explained how we did some of them.

I did harp on about how difficult they were to find and then shifted into loss of habitat and use of pesticides. “These are huge problems, bumble bees are disappearing because of pesticides, we know that now, it isn’t just green propaganda and as the countryside is already under huge pressure from human populations wanting bigger and more roads and more and more housing.

“So if you want to see things like harvest mice, hen harriers, dormice and glow worms talk to your MPs and local councillors, they’ll be asking for your votes soon enough. See if you can protect wildlife by joining the demands for government to do something about it, because if you don’t force them to do something now, neither you nor your children or grandchildren ever will see any of these threatened or endangered species.”

We raised nine hundred pounds for conservation charities and had three hundred come to the talk. I’d call that a result. All we need to do now is get them to act.