Harriers...

Yesterday was my second day as a volunteer at Blacktoft Sands, the RSPB reserve. It’s an undemanding role: meeting and greeting visitors, mostly, and chatting about birds. A couple turned up, full of enthusiasm. They’d recently joined the RSPB, even though, as they admitted, they didn’t know much about birds. I reassured them that the enjoyment of watching birds didn’t depend on how many birds they could recognise.

They returned, after a couple of hours, in an even more enthusiastic mood. “Amazing!”, the woman said. “Just amazing!”. Having had the marsh harriers pointed out to them, while sitting in a hide, they'd watched the birds hunting over the reedbeds. They marveled at the way that other, smaller birds put their own lives at risk to prevent their offspring coming to harm, even if not all these efforts were successful. The couple watched as a marsh harrier swooped down, plucked a little grebe off the water and carried it away.

The couple agreed that joining the RSPB was one of the best things they’d done (see, I’m sounding corporate already!) and said they'd definitely visit Blacktoft Sands again. If they were looking for a new hobby to share, during their retirement years, I think they’d found it.

Licensed yesterday: the parish church at Orton, in Cumbria...