It's cold and wet, mostly. There are more hills per capita, but less Pearly Queens. Sheep abound, and the air is less likely to kill you. It also looks nice.
People are much friendlier up here than in London. Every single person you pass while out for a walk in the countryside says hello or stops for a chat, so there are negatives too. But, on the whole, its nice up here.
I went over to Leighton Moss RSPB (Royal Secret Society for the Production of Birds) to have a look at what birds they had in stock. Apart from trying for too long to get nineteen Jackdaws in a single shot (and failing) in order to make a CORVID 19 joke, I had an overall pleasant outing.
There was a good number of people around, and I had to say hello to every one of them. Apart from one guy, who just grunted at his shoes as he walked past. It was nice to see a fellow southerner.
I was walking slowly to see if anything might pop out of the reed-beds, and could sense a couple approaching from behind. I flew into immediate panic, they would pass me at any moment. Would they attempt a sneaky 'hello' from my blind spot, forcing me to turn around and acknowledge, or maybe they'd try a drive-by greeting as they overtook. I tensed and prepared for the worst.
The moment came and they sailed past without incident. But then, all of a sudden, in unison, they both turned their heads and simultaneously went for the aft salutation. I gave a return volley and they moved on.
Relieved that that ordeal was over I began to relax again and settle back into my stroll, listening to the murmuring whistle of wigeon floating on the the air. A few blissful minutes passed until I noticed that the couple had stopped a hundred yards ahead. They were looking into the reeds.
Be calm, act natural, I told myself. They will probably move on soon. They'd definitely go by the time you get there. But they didn't.
As it turns out, they were looking for a Cetti's warbler that had sang as they walked past, so there was no chance they were moving any time soon (as all birdwatchers know, Cetti's warblers are invisible). My stroll slowed to a dawdle, and then, finally, to pallbearer pace, but there was no sign of them moving on. I was on a collision course.
"Hello!" They sang as I walked past. I repeated the same and sped on.
It wasn't too much further that I spotted some frogspawn just off the path. I like looking at frogspawn, so I stopped. There was loads of the stuff. I got so engrossed in the activity that I didn't notice that they had given up on the Cetti's and were bearing down upon me fast. It was too late to get up now, it would look too obvious.
"Hi!" They got me again!
I waited a little longer, strictly speaking a little too long for looking at frogspawn, and eventually went back on my way. A minute later, they had stopped again. This time it was a water rail that the couple had stopped to look for.
I looked back the way I had come and there was a crowd of maybe twenty or so people approaching from behind! Would I have to say hello to them individually, or just one hello for the whole group? No, I couldn't go back that way. Neither could I go forward lest I get sucked into a game of greetings leap-frog with the couple in front of me. I decided my only course of action was to fling myself off the boardwalk and start a new life among the reeds.
Sure, I would miss my wife and child, but it wouldn't be so bad. I could find myself a glass bottle and entertain myself by blowing over the opening and mimicking the mating boom of the bittern and watching as the couple who started all of this, who like to look for invisible birds, spent their day searching for me.
In fact, I could sneak around to different parts of the reserve with my bottle and make noises in different areas and double, or even quadruple their count of the species, and thus do my bit for conservation by increasing the numbers of this rare bird.
Leighton Moss have two bitterns at present, one of which saw fit to boom while I was wandering about, possibly constituting the highlight of the visit. Not a lot of people realise this, but you can change the pitch of a bittern's call by changing the amount of water inside them.
I eventually hid in a hide until the couple were long gone.
Water levels were high, and duck levels were low. Apparently the unusual amount of rain we've had has depleted the duck numbers. So, take that Grandma! It's not good weather for ducks!
Next to a couple of male teal I spotted two brown stripey blobs with their heads tucked into their backs. I presumed they were female teal, but they seemed a little too small so I kept watch until one of them moved their head to reveal itself as a snipe. Just at this moment one of the other people in the hide said to her friend that she hadn't seen a snipe yet today.
Being the sociable chap that I am I wanted to alleviate her disappointment. Now, I thought I had said "If you look to the right of those two teal over there you will see two snipe with their heads tucked in," but what I apparently said was, "there are two snipe over there, but first of all, won't you please tell me about your journey here, where you live and what your grandchildren do for a living, and if you still have time, I would enjoy a lengthy discussion about your coronavirus precautionary measures."
Once she settled down to look at the snipe I decided to count a few ducks before leaving, but, before I could do so the gang of twenty people I had spotted earlier burst into the room and filled the hide with jollity and greetings for all.
I was about to evacuate when one of the gang shouted "Look! A merganser!" The room fell silent and all binoculars shot in the direction in which she was pointing, right at the great-crested grebe she was indicating.
After a few tuts and scowls the noise died back down, until the same woman spoke up again. "Is that a scaup?" and we all turned to look at the tufted duck she had misidentified.
I'm sure you all know the story of the boy who called wolf, so it will come as no surprise to you what happened on the third time, when she then claimed she saw a bittern! That's right, we tied her up and fed her to some wolves.
I decided to make my excuses an venture on to another hide. As I've already mentioned, the place was quite flooded (Leighton Moss also manages Eric Morecambe bay, but it was closed that day due to the flooding).
There were signs up warning that some of the hides were inaccessible without wellies. I was a little disappointed as I had left my wellies at home. Luckily I was wearing the pair of 70s glam rock platform shoes that I always wear bird-watching, so the deeper puddles were no problem.
In one of the other hides I was surprised to spot a couple of terns perched on a small platform in the water. On closer inspection I discovered that they were plastic dummies. I'm often caught out by this kind of thing, like when I spot an owl or peregrine falcon perched on buildings around town, only to discover they're fake ones placed there to scare off pigeons from hanging about on the rooftops.
I can only presume Leighton Moss has a problem with fish hanging about on the islands so use this tactic to scare them off. Although, a sign did say it was an attempt to encourage terns to come and breed on this sight, I guess in the same way dating apps create lots of fake accounts to try and attract users.
The birds at Leighton Moss are very accommodating...
... possibly picking up on the northern friendliness. I had great close up views of dunnocks, robins, wrens, chaffinches, green finches, gold finches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, pheasants, ducks, collard doves and mallards in the gardens, and some good views of wigeon, teal, pochard, shoveller, tufted duck, golden eye, great crested grebe, little grebe, snipe, oyster catcher, lapwings and marsh harriers from the hides. I even caught a couple of good glimpses of water rail in the reeds. Add all of these to the sounds of Cetti's, curlew and, of course, bittern then it wasn't too shabby a day after all.
The reserve is very blessed with volunteers. Everywhere you looked there was someone in a blue jumper going about informing.
For example, did you know, that eels spawn their eggs in the the Bahamas and then let them drift on the tide over to the UK to hatch? Apparently under the dark waters of Leighton Moss the place is crawling with eels! And there lies another difference with where I have just moved from, if this were East London the ponds would be full of hungry cockneys with barrels of jelly.
I stopped off at the visitor's centre to get mugged by the cafe (it's all for a good cause) and then headed home.
Fun bonus game: In the above picture there is actually a dunnock hiding! Dunnocks are so boring that they are almost impossible to see, making for the perfect camouflage. Can you spot the dunnock in the picture?
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