Encounters with friends

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I haven’t even opened the car door and a wren’s shouting at me.

Think nothing of it. It’s their way. I take it as a sign that I will do well here.

‘Here’ is a bird reserve in north Kent. I have a day off, so I’ve come to see if there are any birds.

There are birds.

The inevitable robin welcomes me with its silver serenade, fluting complexity contrasting with a great tit’s two-noter from the other side of the path. A blackcap counterpoints with its own contribution – complex free jazz to the great tit’s Status Quo banality.

The distant ker-chook of pheasant. Slightly closer, the answering boom of shotgun.

Oh.

A chiffchaff, chiffing and chaffing. Chiff chaff chiff chaff chiff chaff chiff. In between, it mumbles softly to itself. Then again: chiff chaff chiff chaff chiff. For now, it’s a welcome sign of early spring. But the novelty will wear off soon enough.

A green woodpecker laughs at me from a distance. Coward. Come and laugh at me to my face. I can take it.

A tschirrrp from the brambles. Somewhere in there, two long-tailed tits, fleetingly seen and continually heard, their excitable chirrups accompanying me as I walk towards the body of the reserve.

The path is flanked by trees and scrub. Who knows what lurks within? For each bird advertising its presence, how many are there just hanging out, resting between meals, sitting on a branch doing their mindfulness?

A movement to the left. White flash of rump, pot-bellied flight, splayed wings, in and out of my sight as it speeds through the trees. A jay! And another one! A two-jay day. Always a pleasure. I mean, come on. Jays are great. Colourful plumage, bucking the Goth vibe of the other corvids. Greasepaint moustache. Raw shriek tearing the woodland air in two. Its Welsh name is ‘sgrech y coed’ – ‘scream of the woods’. Yes. Good.

Into the hide. As I turn the handle, I have an ungenerous thought, as I so often do.

I hope there’s nobody in there.

Selfish, this desire to have the birds to myself, not to have to make small talk with strangers. It wouldn’t be so bad, really. People are good. Bird people especially so. But still, a little wave of relief at the room’s emptiness.

And here are the easy birds, the ones content just to disport themselves right there in front of you. Mallards, shovelers, Canada geese. No hiding in the depths of shrubbery for them.

Gadwall. The grey duck with the pert head. Underrated bird, they often say. So often, whisper it soft, that it’s in danger of becoming overrated.

Mute swans taking off. What a sight. The weight of it. The effort. Whump whump whump. Necks straining, upward progress as slow as a 747, then the slow bank round and away.

A heron, surprised. It lifts from the ditch, grey gangle, legs trailing, pissed off. I was just standing there, what the fuck, just leave me alone.

Eight sand martins, swooping and slicing through the cold drizzly air, no doubt wondering why the hell they bothered. All the way from Africa and this is what we get.

A marsh harrier. It was all but extinct in the UK in my childhood, so I drink in every sighting with extra relish, on behalf of ten-year-old me. It rises from the reed bed like a dark ghost – creamy of head, slender of wing, long of tail – then floats on a cushion of air above it. A few languid flaps to make lazy progress across the horizon, then it’s met by a furious lapwing – agitating, harrying, circling the larger bird and escorting it to city limits. The harrier gets the message and, favouring the peaceful life, continues its search for food elsewhere.

Up the hill now, skirting the puddles at its foot, picking my way through mud patches, cheered on by a song thrush – go go, keep left keep left, right to the top right to the top – and rewarded by the bluebells dotted among the trees, the sun making a brief, wan appearance, then deciding against it.

Soon there will be whitethroats here, cuckoos, nightingales. Not yet, though. Too soon. But still, I cock an ear. You never know. The first swifts were reported this morning, their extraordinary journey marked with a bald report on my screen – ‘two over Reservoir Lagoon’. It’s early for swifts – very early. They’re outliers, of course. And, I discover when I look it up later, not especially early compared to similar outliers in recent years. Some birds just can’t wait to get here, it seems. Nevertheless, for many species these arrival dates are getting earlier, the exact amounts varying. Swifts – five days earlier on average than in the 1960s; sand martins – 25 days earlier.

Things ain’t what they used to be.

Despite the undertow of unease – perhaps because of it – I pledge to relish all this, each encounter, no matter how apparently mundane.

A mallard, common as duck, floating benignly just there in front of the hide? Yes please.

The ubiquitous wood pigeon, cooing plumply from a nearby tree? Gimme.

The blackbird, treetop-perched and belting out its greatest hit? Hook it up to my veins.

All those birds. Each one a little dot of goodness, a pinprick of pleasure. And the cumulative effect – despite the weariness, despite the rain setting in, despite the chill wind whipping in from the east – is nourishing, sustaining. The very stuff of life.

Back to the car. The wren – the same one, I assume – shouts at me again.

Love you too.

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The people at Knepp have put up a storkcam. We welcome this development.

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Amy Tan’s Backyard Bird Diary is a very fine thing.

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