Spring?

I can’t believe how much the weather has changed in two and a half weeks. On ‘snow Monday’ all the buses in London stopped and I couldn’t get to work. Today it was 14°C and I was strolling around Tottenham Marshes enjoying a bit of birding on the way to Sainsburys.

It really was wonderful, we saw the local Egyptian goose, had great views of a Goldcrest and Chiffchaff and got very close to a beautiful female Kestrel just sitting on a branch watching the world go by. I think she may be one of the pair that nests underneath the roof of the North Stand at White Hart Lane, the world famous home of the Spurs, clearly a Kestrel with good taste!

But the highlight for me was the Song Thrush sitting high in a tree by the car park, singing away. His repertoire was impressive, switching effortlessly between car alarm and nightingale – all at top volume.

It’s amazing how relaxed you can get, even in under an hour, when you are strolling around in sunshine listening to birdsong and watching Coots fighting. And all this just a couple of hundred metres from a main road.

And I met a really nice bloke out walking his two dogs. As soon as he saw our binoculars he asked what birds there were in this part of the marshes that he might see if he could manage to remember to bring his newly purchased binoculars. When I told him about the Kestrel and that I’d seen a Peregrine Falcon there a week or so ago, he got really enthusiastic as he is a big fan of birds of prey.

And as I was pushing my trolley around Sainsburys looking at all the long faces and dodging the impatient crowds I still found myself smiling. And it struck me that if more people took a little time to look and listen to the wildlife around them they would be more relaxed and the world would be a better place!

After all, in these credit crunch times there can be few better ways of not spending money that walking around in the sun enjoying the birds!