What made me open my eyes? It was certainly the best possible timing. There, perhaps 30 feet above my swaying hammock was a perfectly enormous bird. It was one of those moments when something deeply familiar takes you utterly by surprise. I gazed at the sky thinking: that – is — huuuge!
It was a heron. It was travelling in a nonchalant glide, for herons glide with great efficiency on occasions, normally when coming in to land. I had a brief glimpse of the pair of headlights – well, white spots – on the front of the wings and then a long look at the tall arches of the wings themselves, the neck tucked in tight and the long trailing legs.
The bird was filled with purpose, moving with ostentatious confidence. A heron normally flies with slow, measured beats, as if, as Rudyard Kipling writes of the adjutant stork, each slow stroke would be his last. But this one was flying with something of a swagger. I had no bins – awkward to use in a hammock and besides, contrary to the tradition of the hammock naturalist – but I had no doubt that this bird had a full crop.
That’s because it was gliding in the direction of the heronry: an alder carr that contains, so the British Trust for Ornithology has just told me, at least ten active nests — and that’s a record for this damp and pleasant spot. The heron was homing in on the nest and the young herons it contained: bringing them a great gobful of warm and delicious fish soup.
It was a little vignette of triumph: a small celebration of the meaning and purpose of spring. Certainly the world needs all the herons it can get.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/spring-is-the-only-season/simon-barnes/9781526667359
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