IF WE HAD never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man or woman grown, set down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind would be filled with its glory unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such things could be mere matter . . . too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away.

That’s not a bad first paragraph is it? So why don’t you spit on it?

I’ll explain. The paragraph was written not by me but Richard Jefferies, the Victorian nature writer. He first came to public notice with a series of letters written to The Times in 1872. So it is only right that The Times should have something to say about the destruction of all that Jefferies loved and held holy.

I could well be talking generally, about life, or nature or the planet. There was a prophetic streak in Jefferies, and he had some notion of the catastrophe we should all be contributing to a century and a half later.

But here, I am talking quite specifically about the countryside around Coate Farmhouse, on the outskirts of Swindon. It was here that Jefferies got the hang of nature and therefore of his life’s work: the farmhouse where he was born is now a museum dedicated to his life and works. This place mattered to Jefferies as Selborne mattered to Gilbert White.

So now there are well-advanced plans to destroy this countryside around Coate and fill it with 1,800 houses, 23 hectares of industry, 60 hectares of extra bits of the University of Bath and a hospital extension. It is all part of the deal to get a slice of a minor university into Swindon.

The only price is destroying the countryside, which is worth saving for its own sake, and also for the human associations with Swindon’s greatest writer — and great writers are not thick on the ground, even in Swindon. There is already a strong local campaign.

The theme of Jefferies’s generously contributed opening paragraph to this column is that we take for granted the things we already have: it is only on seeing it for the first time that we would realise their true value. Jefferies writes not just for his time but for our own time: could this have been more amply demonstrated by this witless piece of planning?

• A PHONE CALL: my neighbour John Burton was going to take a quick break from buying up rainforest for the World Land Trust and go on a wild waxwing chase. Because these mad birds are back: and they need to be caught right away.

  Their natural habitat is the supermarket car park And sure enough, they have turned up at the Co-op in Halesworth. Burton and I found them elsewhere: on some obscure Suffolk lane, a subtle shade of cinnamon and eyes like a hippy child-of-nature who has overdone the kohl.

  Waxwings come to this country in dribs and drabs, in flocks and flockettes, and they do so when they run out of rowan berries in Scandinavia. They come to gorge on whatever berries they can find here: and if they can’t get hawthorn — and they can’t because the hawthorn berries have almost all gone — they go for anything they can lay beak on.

  That includes gardens filled with cotoneaster: they have a catholic taste in berries. And as supermarket car parks are regularly planted out with berry-bearing shrubs, waxwings have become connoisseurs of the supermarkets of Britain, particularly along the eastern side of the country, as you would expect.

  I have waxwing as a garden tick, seen, yes, right in the middle of a berry bush, endeavouring to scoff the lot. And Burton and I found our lot tree-top high, chattering softly to each other, seeking out a place to roost and sleep off the day’s berry-binge.

  The winter is a hard time of year for birds and humans alike: but these are winter birds who add a colour and joy to the times of deprivation. I suggest that this weekend you keep an eye on your berries. If you find a quite absurdly dapper and exotic bird eating them, then you’ve seen a waxwing. Go on your way rejoicing.