MY mum’s and John’s mum’s ashes rest under the trees surrounding the large pond John dug out 20 years ago. We had contacted a water diviner to indicate if there was an underground spring. We found a water source, and subsequently, the pond filled naturally and has never, even in times of drought, dried up.

A peaceful place, surrounded by trees, it offers a final resting places for our mums' ashes, those of a friend’s son and also many of our dogs. As we had missed Mother’s Day while in New Zealand, it was the first thing I wanted to do on our return. Take flowers down to the trees which commemorate their lives. And it was while there, that a huge difference in the woods in this country and those of New Zealand, hit me. Our woods are alive with the sound of bird life. Most of the woods we walked through in New Zealand were silent.

Isolated from the rest of the world, New Zealand’s birds thrived in an environment with virtually no natural predators. As a result, birds did not necessarily have to fly to escape predation. But when the M?ori settlers arrived 700 years ago, lumbering birds such as the Moa, were soon hunted to extinction. But it was we British, 500 years later, bringing our ships full of rats and offering easy passage from Australia to New Zealand for the rather cute looking little possum, that have proved most devastating to New Zealand’s bird life.

In fact, to establish a fur trade, possums were even initially encouraged in New Zealand. It wasn’t until much later, that their omnivorous diets was recognised as having a devastating impact on the environment. The little terrors even liked to use the nest holes of native birds for their own broods.

There is now a very active national programme to control this pest and New Zealand aims to be predator free by 2050. We saw the most successful outcomes of this programme on our visit to tiny Ulva Island. There, its isolation from the mainland and an intense vermin control system, has proved successful in encouraging kiwis and other bird life to flourish. And to add to the magic, there are albatrosses in significant numbers flying off the coastline. That was a wow factor.

So, back home, it was uplifting to hear and see birds once more in every habitat at the bird table, woods, fields, garden and around our house. You never know what you have until you realise it has gone.