#martin mere

[blondebrainpowered]

Pair of Mandarin ducks (Aix galericulata), at Martin Mere, Lancashire, UK, 2012

Photographer: Francis C. Franklin

[dessertbird]

Duck portraits

Drake Eurasian Wigeon Anas penelope

Martin Mere WWT Reserve

Different individuals moulting into breeding plumage from 6th Nov 2024.

[cahoticaana]

Viking Village por DianneB 2007.

[dessertbird]

Bird portraits

Bird portraits taken at Martin Mere WWT Reserve on 6th Nov 2024. ☺️🪶🦆❤️

photo details in ALT text

[alunah-lalunah]

Why non-reproduction is costly?

Having children is costly in the obvious, material, individual sense. Time, money, exhaustion, damaged bodies, damaged lives, neglected children. Yes, modern conditions make reproduction increasingly reckless. But that is not the cost I meant. When I say non-reproduction is costly, I do not mean it costs diapers, sleep, or school fees. I mean it costs something much harder to give up, namely, symbolic continuity.

For most humans, children are not primarily about care or love. They are about: – continuation of the self – insurance against death – meaning outsourced into the future – social legitimacy (“a normal life”) – participation in the species’ narrative

Non-reproduction cuts all of that off.

You don’t just lose children. You lose: – the illusion that something of you will go on – the social script that organizes adulthood – the moral shield of “I did my part” – the hope that suffering will be redeemed downstream

That is the cost. Biologically, the species doesn’t care. Economically, societies panic, still irrelevant. Psychologically and existentially, most people cannot bear the void this opens. That’s why cultures moralize reproduction so aggressively. If it were merely “easier not to have kids,” there wouldn’t be this level of coercion, shame, and mythology around it.

Under current conditions, reproduction is often more destructive than refusal. Children raised without time, care, stability, or attention are not a triumph of life; they are collateral damage of instinct plus ideology. Autism rates, stress disorders, chronic illness are not mysteries. They are system outputs.

No, non-reproduction is not selfish. That accusation is a propaganda reflex of a species terrified of its own contingency. Non-reproduction, however, is not noble rebellion. It is withdrawal from a story you no longer believe. It does neither make you better, nor fix the Earth, nor defeat life. It simply refuses to pretend that continuation is sacred. Some people do this reflectively. Most never could. That’s the cost. What is hardest to give up is not life itself, but the fantasy that life needs us to justify it.

[dansnaturepictures]

View, dandelion and Mute Swan at Fishlake Meadows on Monday and Reed Bunting at Martin Mere last month

[dansnaturepictures]

Snow Goose at Martin Mere and view at Blashford Lakes earlier in the month, phone photo of snowdrops in Winchester at lunch time and raindrops on the window this evening and Black Swan at Riverside Park on Sunday.

It was also great to hear a Dunnock and Wren singing beautifully and see Woodpigeon, Jackdaw and winter heliotrope today.

[dessertbird]

Nature therapy

Angry bird! 🐦😠

Northern Lapwing seeing off a Ruff at Martin Mere WWT Reserve, 6th Nov 2024.