The Herons Visit

I thought I was pretty-well acquainted with the wildlife in my mum’s garden. An assumption, I believed, had been cemented during this vaguely apocalyptic lock down, where I have found myself stationed back on the council estate I grew up on.

Here I’ve passed my time staring out of windows watching the sparrows rove the estate in rowdy gangs, Mr. and Mrs. Blackbird making numerous trips from one garden to another gathering worms, starlings casually preening their oil slick feathers on chimney tops and the goldfinches casting spells with silvery voices. I’ve sat between sparring drone flies defending their territory and smiled as the first peacock of the season settled on the shed wall, it’s colours brighter and bolder against the clean, white brick. In the evenings I’ve heard the snuffling of hedgehogs searching the shadows for slugs, as bats hunt the moths that gather under streetlights.

Safe to say I’ve done a lot of watching, and safer to say I’ve not been entirely surprised by the wild visitors we’ve had (although I have been pleasantly surprised by the increased frequency of the visits now that the world is quieter). It has all been pretty standard, council estate wildlife; until one morning when a new, surprising, figure appeared on the horizon.

Now, typically the big wings around here belong to the herring gulls. They circle over back gardens and roof tops on stiff, straight wings, scrounging for scraps. Not at all like the wings headed towards me now. These wings were bigger, slower moving, almost lazy, like someone slowly drawing rounded ‘m’s’ in the sky. Much darker grey than those of the gulls. A grey that matched the passing rain clouds perfectly.

From my desk in the bedroom I could just make out a sharp beak and a pair of legs held plank like behind the bird, features that could only be attributed to a heron.

On the face of things this isn’t entirely odd. Herons often pass over the council estate high-up early in the morning and again with the dying embers of the day – their own commute from home to work and back again. I know this because I’ve seen it – back in the pre -lockdown days when I had a routine and the times of day weren’t solely categorised by being awake, asleep or eating. But this heron did not appear to be taking the same route as those others I’d seen before. This heron was on a different course.

He was lower.

Much lower.

Only just skimming the top of the oak tree lower.

It was aiming for the neighbours house in this weird gambling, swaying flight almost as though it was tripping over the air. To begin with it aimed for the hedge with those lengthy, yellow legs straightening tentatively before snatching back up when no firm footing could be found. Now, it was headed straight for the house.

Honestly, it looked like a disaster.

A last-minute emergency stall convinced me it was going to pull up and wheel away between the houses to spare any blushes, but surprisingly it landed it. The heron had touched down on the steepest slope of the neighbours rooftop, tucked his wings in and transformed from gangly mess, to swauve, well dressed dinner guest.

There is no denying that Old Nog is a strange looking creature, part beautiful, part prehistoric. There is also no denying that this presence on top of the neighbours roof, was not an everyday occurrence on a council estate in Totton.

Perhaps this was a sign.

A grey beacon of hope in these peculiar times of panic. A message from the wild world that this soon will pass and we will no-longer be confined to our homes (herons were once thought to herald a change in the weather and I have recently become strangely good at clutching at straws). A long-necked luck charm even – fishermen used to carry a heron’s foot for luck - albeit luck in the form of attracting fish, but we have fallen on hard times and I will take whatever charms I can get!

My bedroom view gave me a perfect profile, the elegant curve of the neck, those black breeding feathers catching the breeze and trailing like ribbons, as a yellow eye peered intently into the garden below.

This was no luck charm.

This was a heron come to eye up the next door neighbours prize carp. Big, fat specimens of fish confined in a small pond with a constant pump mimicking the sound of a trickling stream; no substitute for the real thing, just a steady reminder that it might be a while before I heard one again.

It might just be the perfect hunting spot for an opportunistic heron. Easy pickings. That’s if it wasn’t for the fact that this carp owner had preempted a cat/heron strike and netted the top of the pond with a fine mesh.

Here the heron had no chance, his long, knife like beak was no match for the covering, he would have to seek out another fishing spot, a wilder, less hemmed in one. Somewhere he could stretch out those long legs and stalk the prey that passes; fish, amphibian, mammal on the bank – who knows, but today be koi carp would not be on the menu.

Not one to waste time, he shifted his body weight and not at all gracefully launched into the sky, his huge wings like billowing bed sheets. Once airborne his grace returned and he manoeuvred with ease through the rows of houses, probably headed for the marshes of the lower test, where clear rivers meet the muddy Southampton Water.

This unexpected but more than welcome visitor was gone as quickly as he came in and I was left to watch the roving sparrows and question my acquaintance with the garden visitors. Turns out, I didn’t know the wildlife in my mum’s garden quite as well as I thought I did.