Edge habitats are those between, say, woodland and grassland. They are like the vanguard of the wood - scrub and, further out, sort of heath. So you have a smooth structure descent from high canopy, to young trees growing through hazel or hawthorn, to brambles and maybe elder, to patches of grass with wildflowers, until the grassland proper.
This is the most species-rich habitat as those specific to either side can use it - for foraging or nesting - and generalists as well will be present.
It's a declining habitat and one of the causes for habitat loss.
As I was standing at the edge of the overgrown copse, looking out into the fields, I thought, 'Yeah, this feels right.'
And I considered ideas about liminality, borderlands (see Jerome Bernstein's Living in the Borderland), non-duality, ambiguity, connection... the grey area which I think our Western cultures find so very hard to accept or understand.
We want this or that, good or bad, black or white, sentient or non-sentient, nature or culture...
It seems to me that this is where the real work is - feeling into the edge habitats, being in the borderland.
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