The song of the skylark has filled poets’ hearts for centuries, from Shelley’s “blithe spirit” to Wordsworth’s “ethereal minstrel”. But there is little that is poetic about a row over the birds that has blown up in Colchester.

Campaigners seeking to save Middlewick Ranges, a former Ministry of Defence firing range in Essex, are furious that some of the 76 hectares of rare grassland were mowed last month, an act that they believe has killed skylarks and their chicks, which nest on the ground.

When Martin Pugh, an ecologist at Essex Wildlife Trust and a member of the Save the Wick campaign group, challenged a tractor driver mowing the grassland last month, he was chased away by a member of security staff and video footage appeared to show him being assaulted.

I did some of early ecological survey training at the Wick. It really would be a tremendous loss if given over to housing.