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Showing posts from May, 2014

All together now

South East London, A wood. 4.45am. 25 people stood in a huddle. All of us strangers. Of the 25 strangers, some are experts; they are the ones with torches and binoculars.  Others are experienced and come bearing flasks of coffee and notebooks. And a few, like me, are hapless romantics who don't own walking boots, and are ambitious to feel connected to something other than cement streets, Google and public transport.  Light starts to creep through the slumbering darkness of the wood. The birds stir. Overhead, the Robin spies our group. His red breast puffs with great suspicion and he trills a warning riff.  The blackbird is a little more accommodating and throws back his head to bellow his brave new world song.  A bicycle pump like sound shoots through the trees.  It's the Great Tit's strong but humorous call, urging you to wake up and start the day. Who can resist that call to action; we head deeper into the woods. When birds wake up, we are told, their fir