Renville was blessed with wildlife. The presence of a forest, rolling meadows, a golf-course and miles of unbroken seashore provided a mosaic of natural habitats for rabbit, stout, crabs, mussels, pheasants, heron and badger. Every spring, I use to sit down on the grass and admire fox cubs at play 20 yards away. I was lucky enough to capture their antics on my digital movie camera.
Sadly, a phenomenal rise in housing and institutional development in the locality is threatening the survival of these species. Yet amazingly, some wild creatures do adapt and multiply in these new man-made environments. In summer months, dozens of housemartin birds fly out of the nests that they had built up in the eaves of the holiday houses and perform breathtaking air displays to the delight of our guests. Starlings would set up homes in any large spaces found in the brickwork exterior. Some individual crows became almost personal pets as they regularly sat on the gutters waiting to be feed breadcrumbs. One crow was so friendly that locals bestowed him with a name -‘Jack’ – which he responded to!
In the last six months, one large solitary hare daily visited the grounds of the neighbouring hotel and nonchalantly chewed the long grass taking little notice of passing pedestrians.
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