Skip to main content

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 first instinct is to sing a hello that then freefalls into a song about their territory and other headlines news.  To my ear, this conversation sounds like a celebration. An improvisation around the themes of love, life and nesting.  I'm a singer. My instinct is to also sing.  But I'd describe my waking up routine as a series of groans followed by a set of withering looks to my alarm clock based around the thought of, 'you've got to be kidding'.  Hearing the joy in the woods, the genuine celebration of a new day, I feel that my waking up routine just doesn't cut it anymore.

As the promise of the new day emerges, more birds join the Dawn Chorus. Woodpeckers, magpies, thrushes, woodpigeons, chiffchaffs and jackdaws add their melodies.  The bird's symphony evolves.  A low flying Kestrel emerges from an opening in the woods, hot on the heels of new possibilities.  The sun warms up the wood.  As it shifts through the trees, it pauses over a bluebell grove where a song thrush solos.

2 hours later, dawn has been and gone and the day ahead beckons.
The 25 strangers arrive at where they began.
Not so much strangers anymore. 
All with different thoughts of the same experience.
All filled with wonder.

We go our separate ways.
Some go to work.
Others go to school.
I head back home, determined to take a lesson from the birds.  Tomorrow morning, I'll find a brighter thought to begin the day when that alarm clock calls me to action. 

---------------

Reference:
The Dawn Chorus Walk, Sydenham Hill Woods
Walk Guide, Daniel Greenwood.
Organised by London Wildlife Trust
Part of International Dawn Chorus Day

To find out more about:
International Dawn Chorus Day, click here
For details about London Wildlife Trust, go here
Get to know Sydenham Hill Woods by clicking here

Popular posts from this blog

Revels and Rebels XV

Dear Santa, When I was kid, I created a make believe village. Do you remember it? Every Christmas, between the ages of eight to twelve, I asked for Philip Laureston village figurines – perfectly detailed buildings complete with climbing roses and house signs. My village started with a cottage, the Rose and Crown pub and an oak tree. Over the years it was extended to include a farm, a school, a church, a village hall, shops and a duck pond. Each week I visited the villagers and had delightful conversations and arguments, and in the messiness of my imagination I understood what made their imagined lives happier. I remember one heated debate where the parents demanded a school house because they thought it was inappropriate to educate their children in the Rose and Crown pub. The children rather liked their lessons in the snooker room. The parents won. Since the Pandemic began, I can honestly say that I’ve truly understood what life was really like for my imagined villagers. This idea of

Revels and Rebels XIII

Dear Santa, I’m sat by the Christmas tree. The fairy lights twinkle, the baubles sparkle, and the clip-on-birds look really confused. The white dove is looking at me wondering where peace went, and the robin, having given up on Christmas, is taking a nose dive towards the floor. I understand the birds’ confusion. 2020 is the year where the world turned upside down and inside out. Bound at home, unable to hug friends and visit family, attempting disconnected living in a connected world. Which way is the North Star – who knows? We’re all a bit like Odysseus down here, stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one side you have the rock of reality eroded and twisted by politicians and media. The other side, the six headed monster of big Pharma trading health for profit and barking down contrary ideas to protect financial growth. One thing is for sure, Capitalism is not interested in paying the ransom for Freedom. You’ll be sad to learn that ‘Ho, ho, ho’ went out of the window mont

Revels and Rebels XIV

Dear Santa, It's Epiphany. Twelfth Night. You're about to hang up your Christmas sack for the festive season and here I am writing to you with my last-minute request. I know, I'm as irritating as a Christmas Pudding that refuses to light no matter how much warm brandy you pour on it.  Soggy Christmas Pudding aside, there is a reason why this letter is late. I've been ruminating over what to wish for. And the thing is this - I still don't know what to wish for. My current plan, or hope, is that in writing to you I might write myself into my wish. The thing is this, since the pandemic began, I'm having trouble finding a way to live in the world. Working out what I must suffer, what I can change. How to navigate sorrow and joy. And how to live with the conflicts within whilst the noise of division and marginalisation rage all around. Sometimes, they become one of the same. Sounds confusing, right? And fuelling this confusion is the general level of fear we have to