Where the wild things are
February 26, 2009 by Bird
Filed under Blog, Fauna, Flora, Navel Gazing, Wild London
You don’t have to go walking in glamorous, beautiful country locations to find little patches of wildness. Any city, no matter how sterile on first examination has a virile crust of life that cannot be completely scoured from it’s surface, however hostile or oblivious the resident humans are. I’ve churned out the rural eye-candy many a time here, but I’d be falling into a trap if I didn’t pay homage to the life I see all around me in London. It goes about it’s own business; it does not care about or even notice us. I love all the signs of wildness, the signs that we absolutely have not and hopefully never will subdue the earth.
The ferns in the brickwork where the drainpipe leaks
The mosquito larvae thriving unwanted in the upturned dustbin lid
The fox earth in the junk of a neglected garden
The pioneer weeds thronging a cracked pavement
The Kestrel falling out of a blue sky to take an unseen mouse a yard from where you stand, waiting for a bus.
The mouse it’s-self, uninvited, scratching in a cupboard.
Blackbirds quarreling over an apple core
Fireweed reclaiming derelict buildings
Ash saplings infesting a lawn.
The heron stealing expensive fish from your pond,
A mistle thrush and it’s drowsy song atop a tall lamp-post on a busy intersection at twilight
The robins singing in every single avenue tree as you reel home late from the pub
The patina of moss that returns again and again to the brick wall
All life is sacred.
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Hey there Bird,
Well said and excellent post!
All doesn’t need to be manicured and tidy or have the human hand in it to be beautiful. Someday when we’re all long gone, the “wildness” that you’ve described will carry on (and for certain thrive in our absence!).
Thanks for sharing your beautiful observations!
)
Thank you Holly, it makes me glad to know that you get what I am saying. It’s so easy to only see what’s glamorous in nature and not think of these less obvious things as being alive with a mystery of their own. The wildness is everywhere, even a nettle is beautiful if you take a look! (a new nettle leaf against the sun is such a gorgeous green). And as you say the wildness will be there after we are gone, and it was there before we came. That can’t be stressed enough.
Great post–Very true. I grew up just outside of NYC & always love to go back to visit. For one of the largest cities in the world, it’s got a LOT of greenery!
I would LOVE to visit NYC! I bet that city has lots of beautiful things to find, you are so very lucky to know it well
I very rarely visit London and would find it quite a diffciult place to exist I suspect. I have lived in rural countryside all of my life. But, on my occasional visits, I am always fascinated by the mice in the underground. As it turns to dusk, they all start scurrying around the lines, endless hours of amusement, although some people do think I am quite odd!
The parks are also very vast and people tend to not realise if they haven’t visited.
Chrissy, how on earth did I miss putting the underground mice on my list? I think they were the very first sign to me when I arrived in the smoke that cities are not just people and concrete. I always check for mice when I’m using the tube, so I don’t think you’re odd at all! Like you I’ve lived in rural areas or small towns all my life, and the move to a big city was very very difficult for me. As you say though the parks are very big, and if you are lucky enough to live close to parks, canals or reservoirs or even a decent sized cemetery, there will be a lot of exciting wildlife to be seen. I’ve had flocks of Firecrests round my head in Abney Park Cemetary and I know where the herons roost along the River Lee Navigation; in fact one flies over my roof every afternoon. Hardly a night goes by that I don’t see a fox. The birdsong here in spring is terrific, and we even get rare migrants on occasion. I might not have seen some of those wonderful things had I still lived in the countryside, as animals are far shyer there.
Beautiful…It reads like a poem and shows a true, close observation of nature.
xhenry
Most of this post was a list I made while eating breakfast, I was thinking of all the little things you see day to day, all those little signs of life and wondering how I could turn them into a blog post, but instead of doing anything with it I just copied it straight down into my blog with a little introduction tacked on. I thought I was being sloppy! I’ve always wished I could write poetry and been too scared to try so if you think that’s how it reads you’ve just made me very, very happy. Thank you
Damn, this is beautiful.
Thank you Greg
The rabbits that emerge warily onto manicured lawns here at night,
The unmistakable “scree!” called from on high by a red-shouldered hawk,
The line of ants marching, marching from the gutters to your kitchen,
The stubborn, cheerful dandelions scattering seeds (with the help of wishing children),
The nightly chirp of cricket-song as Spring returns,
The brassy chattering squirrels, fat off the seed they steal from
The sweet little chickadees and tufted titmice flitting to the feeder,
And the remains of a feral gleam in the housecat’s eye, as she watches the birds from her windowsill.
That’s a beautiful list Kit! I was hoping someone would come up with a list of their own, so thank you
Many of these would also fit well into my London list, dandelions particularly (they are so cheerful I’m convinced that if they were hard to grow rather than invasive some gardeners would devote whole bedding arrangements to them). Certainly the squirrels who steal figs and plums while looking you straight in the eye should be there, I swear I’ve never come across such hard bitten animals as the squirrels in our garden, they are scared of NOTHING 
I once saw one raiding a neighbours dustbin, it pulled out a half eaten packet of crisps and sat eating them like a child would. So funny I couldn’t shoo it away 
Hey Bird, excellent post, and you are right ‘All life is sacred.’ – Anna
Hey Anna, nice to see you here again and thank you
I’m glad we are all in agreement on that 
Fantastic parallelism! Great description!
It’s sad that many of us do not stop and look at them in so much semblance to nature. We just never bother to take time to appreciate the birds and insects landing on our window ledge or the weeds that grew in our flower pots or the ants that crawl on our kitchen wall or the stray cats in our backyard.
Hi Wenny and thanks for visiting! It’s the small things I love the most, and as you say it’s so easy for those things to be overlooked, ignored or not valued at all.