Gigantic tractors towing huge loads, irate Tesla drivers itching to get past; Amazon delivery vans speeding along carrying cardboard boxes for the masses, supermarket delivery vans trundling more sedately with their baskets of goodies; the odd badger and squirrel lying dead in the road, chosen at random as sacrificial roadkill; the 3:30 traffic jam of SUVs going to collect their precious cargos; some passing beat-boxes vibrating with the womb-like, pulsating bass sounds of sonic therapy for their alienated occupants; the buzzing wine of hedge cutters and leaf-blowers, and the distant sounds of racing cars at a famous raceway.

Yes, the occasional excited shriek from a fleeting blackbird, and sitting imperious above it all, corvids perched next to their nests, high in the trees, seemingly immune to our busy roads and new houses, spilling out into the countryside. Expensive new homes with little or no gardens, cars on the drive ready to go, some plugged into electric sockets, others still part of the great transition. And behind all of this human energy and expansion, the unseen rise of greenhouse gases and the erosion of wildlife habitat. The deer hiding in the bushes waiting for the dog walker to pass by in the twilight, sometimes an abundance of small birds feeding from well-stocked feeders in the occasional garden (much easier than life in the countryside); sparrows roosting unseen in friendly hedges, jacdaws on the rooves, grey wagtails bobbing about outside the shop: the winners who can adapt to Man’s relentless growth, coming with us through the Great Acceleration.

And in between it all, patches of a green and pleasant land, waiting for us to decide how to treat it, and the rare and precious creatures who need it to survive.