Bird on a wire

The last week of April saw weather that was stormy and unpredictable – every day seemed to bring thunderstorms, and hailstones battered the ground only to vanish in moments, turned to steam by sudden, ferocious sunshine. Huge and bizarre cloud formations towered over this sodden, miserable city, their crennelations putting to shame anything the most ambitious and insensitive city of London architect could ever dream up. One of the best places to watch these monstrous skies has to be Walthomstow marshes, an expanse of marshy grasslands, drainage ditches and reedbeds which is flanked by the river Lee navigation on one side and residential and industrial estates on the other. It ensures a vast unbroken view of roiling skies that is difficult to obtain in most parts of London and is thronged with wildlife, so it’s a favorite haunt of mine. Cycling along the Lee’s towpath you can see the weather coming from miles away and it isn’t unusual to spot gray herons, who nest in large numbers both in Bow and Edmonton. The fascinating thing about urban herons is their fearlessness – they are so unconcerned by human proximity that you can approach one thinking that it is a garden ornament, only for it to suddenly unfold itself like a shabby umbrella and leap into the air with a harsh kronk of protest.

I saw this heron when cycling from Victoria Park to Tottenham along the towpath, on a day that had turned from perfect early summer sunshine to violent thunderstorms within ten minutes of setting off. The ride was beautiful, the restless sky throwing shadow patterns on the reed beds and cowslips nodding cheerfully along the verge, the scent of heavy rain and things growing would make anybody feel alive. My camera didn’t often see the light of day-too wet! But at least I caught this heron and the aftermath in the sky.

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