Memories come flooding back

I’m somewhat bemused to see this year’s “Autumn Watch” on BBC2 starting this evening, is going to based at RSPB Leighton Moss. This place has particular associations for us.

Our first marital home was in a cottage on the edge of the bird sanctuary. It certainly was a great place for birds. I remember one day opening the front door to find a heron there. You don’t realise how big they are, or how villainous their bill is, until you’re that close. We gently closed the door. That bill would have gone straight through the hardboard door, not to mention a leg, if it had been alarmed.

One day we found a swift on the ground in our garden. We hastily took it round to the bird sanctuary & were advised to put it somewhere high up. In the garden we had what was originally the chimney of a pumping station. We put the swift high up in the ivy growing on the chimney & kept an eye open for stray cats. After a while the bird managed to recover from its shock & fly off.

We had other delights such as frogs that hopped in through the back door. A, I suspect feral, cat visited us many evenings for milk, a bit of something to eat and a bit of a warm up before our coal fire.

While we were living there we often heard the bitterns booming across the valley.

Early one morning the Fox went for a walk up nearby Warton Crag to see an owl sat on a fence post, head twisting almost totally around.

We did once go along to one of the RSPB hides. I still remember watching a spoonbill at the water’s edge.

The strange thing is that pheasant shooting happened on a regular basis in the bird reserve in those days. At the weekend the men, with their guns, would pass our window, on their way to their shooting stations. Hopefully these days that no longer continues. To me it always seemed at odds with the idea of a bird reserve to allow game bird shooting in the same place. On the one hand you encourage the birds to regard this place as a place of safety, and then you go & shoot some. Very odd.

It may have been nearly 40 years ago, but the memories come flooding back