Although I’m in the heart of London, there are birds here in Hyde Park that remind me of my Northumberland home. I can hear the rattle of a jay and the scornful laugh of a green woodpecker, and watch a grey wagtail bob-bobbing along the edge of the Serpentine as they do along the banks of the East Allen. A dunnock forages beneath a shrub and a treecreeper nimbly picks its way up the bark of a plane tree. But the sudden exotic screech of ring-necked parakeets is a siren sound of the city, and the birds here are very used to people. I pass a foot away from a coot and can study its oversized feet and pale grey scalloped toes.
A woman opens a bag, creating a convergence of mallards and other eager feeders. Pushy mute swans barge past, throwing their weight around among moorhens and greylag geese. Canada geese waddle, slow and rotund, in a large group by the Serpentine’s stone edging. Further out there’s a great crested grebe in its winter feathers. As it swims, its head slips back and forth, snake-like, before a quick dive into the darkening lake. Rain arrives fast today and the water is polka-dotted with heavy drops.
I retreat under the curving white roof that juts out from the cafe. Drinking hot chocolate, I listen to a mix of different languages as others huddle beneath the canopy. A group of pigeons do the same, lining the front balustrade, heads sunk into shoulders, waiting out the shower, as beads of water cluster beneath the wooden rail. More pigeons huddle on the knobby bumps at the base of trees. We are united in our need for shelter.
A man with an umbrella passes and the pigeons fly off, only to resettle further along. On the wet terrace, plane leaves curl up, boat-like, their leaf-stalks the prows of Viking longships. Out in the middle of the pond, impervious cormorants fish and a little grebe pops out of the water like an apple. Then a fling of raindrops is a final fanfare before sun lights up the lake once more.
