“And No Birds Sing”

An ancient pin oak, its heartwood now ossified and alabaster, leans in like a conductor as rows of trees like orchestra members strain for direction. One can almost hear the sylvan sounds of Grieg, lyrical notes of a breeze ascending. Peering into its woodland, this is a view of the northwestern corner of Schweitzer’s Marsh a little over a year ago, before the W&LE Railway opened a channel to drain the marsh, an action not undertaken in over 100 years. Here, above the northern bank, the forest floor is layered in autumn’s last leaves and the scent of damp earth and detritus lingers. Fluorescing lichen paints trees in luminous blues and greens in this remnant of a century old beech and oak forest. Some ancient pin oaks still stand, their bark sloughed through the seasons.

Just over a year later, this pristine wetland, Schweitzer Marsh, is lost, nothing more than withered sedge, rush and shallow pools splashed across vast mud flats that now have replaced acres of wildlife habitat, and destroyed an aesthetic of indescribable beauty and of sunrises that once set the marsh on fire.