The constant vroom of car engines was hushed and instead we heard birdsong: blackbirds, robins, great tits and newly arrived chiffchaffs staking out territories at the tops of their voices. Nature, as it always does, came to the rescue.

The No Mow May campaign took off and thousands of people around the country let their lawns grow, discovering the joy of buttercups, daisies and speedwell in their gardens.  Others, though, used the extra time at home to mow their grass even more often than usual. While some were passionately embracing the wild, others preferred to get rid of it altogether: plastic grass became strangely popular as more and more gardens were converted to outdoor rooms, bereft of wildlife.

Together, we will create connections between existing areas of good habitat, stitching together fragmented wild areas with flower rich grassland, hedges, trees, orchards and other tree planting.  Not everyone recognises the urgency of doing this (there will always be some who prefer a bland, lifeless backyard to one that is humming with bees and singing with birds) but there are millions of us who really do want to bring change.