A brief catch-up

It’s been almost a year since my last blog post, but plenty has happened. Since my last entry I’ve:

• Completed the second year of my degree with a 1st Class overall.

• Moved out of Somerset and now spend my time between south-east Kent and Reading, where I’m living during my third and final year at university (just 6 months to go until graduation!)

• Made a start on my dissertation, which is examining symbolic and descriptive inclusions of birds in Romantic (1790s-1830s) poetry.

• Last month I went skydiving for the first time and became the bird.

• I’ve been working on my Etsy shop and have recently listed my new prints of my robin watercolour painting! — https://www.etsy.com/shop/LarkingUp?ref=search_shop_redirect

• And I’m beginning my job/internship search, preferably in the Publishing and Journalism sector, but I also have job alerts set for wildlife conservation. Eventually, I want to publish a book on wildlife, so at this stage of my life either would be an amazing opportunity to gain industry insight and experiences to write about.

Back to birds

Over the Christmas period I’ve spent a month in Kent, where we’ve had a very special visiter at the Worth Marshes: a white stork. The stork appeared around late November/early December 2021 and soon became the star of the local birding group Facebook page. And quite rightly so, the views and photos gained of the bird were, and continue to be, astonishing.

It’s been exciting couple of years for the white stork in the UK. According to the White Stork Project (https://www.whitestorkproject.org/overvieew), there is archaeological evidence of storks breeding in the UK stretching back 360,000 years. However, due to habitat loss and persecution, the white stork has failed to breed in Britain for over 600 years. That is, until the 6th May 2020, when Knepp in West Sussex welcomed the first wild stork chick to hatch in Britain after 604 years. The estate experienced success again last year, so fingers crossed the south-east is lucky again this year.

With the welcomed bombardment of incredible stork photos blessing my Facebook feed, I had to see the bird myself, and if the reports were to be believed, it shouldn’t be hard — apparently the stork was quite the poser. And so, on the 2nd December 2021, I headed down to Worth Marshes with my dad to search for the stork.

Visiting Worth Marshes

It was quite a mild day, although the previous night’s rainfall had lathered the paths into a quagmire and by the end of the day we were both caked to the ankles in mud.

We parked on the road and crossed the first field, expecting to see the stork around every corner. This was not the case. After a few cases of unfounded excitement when spotting the white feathers of mute swans through the bushes (albeit still lovely birds to see on a sunny winter’s morning), we were beginning to lose hope. Regardless, pools of water were painted by jewel-toned ducks, and flocks of chaffinches chirped from the bare branches lining the paths — all treasures in themselves.

As we walked and talked, a flash of black and white caught the corner of my eye for the slightest second, and as a reflex reaction I yelled “Stork!” I didn’t really see the bird, I only noted that it was big and flying in the opposite direction. My dad challenged my sighting, pointing out that there were a dozen herring gulls flying above us, and my eager mind may be getting ahead of itself. I considered his points, and true, there was every possibility that I was seeing what I wanted to see, but something told me that it couldn’t have been a gull — despite my brief glimpse, it was notable enough for my brain to shout about it and semmed too large to be a gull.

Nevertheless, we turned around and followed the direction of the bird, which was nowhere to be seen, strengthening the ‘gull mixed with wishful thinking’ theory. We continued our conversation and headed back past a saturated field, peppered with coots. There were a few gulls and a couple of crows in the sky, which was completely clear apart from the bird. Their differing altitudes made some crows seem gull sized and some gulls seem crow sized, all equally as dark in the shadow of the sun. Above them, a bird circled at such an angle that I could only see the length of its wingspan as if it were one thin, straight line. As I turned my binoculars to it, the bird turned and its identity was clear: the white stork.

Like the white-tailed eagle (which I have yet to see in person but is at the very top of my to-spot list), the stork could definitely be described as a ‘flying barn door’, if it weren’t for its long, slender neck. As the bird moved the sun shone directly onto its feathers, and despite the distance between us, I could clearly see its orange-red bill and legs. The contrast between the black and white of its wide, square wings was striking and after a few more seconds of circling the stork caught an air current and glided east, barely twitching its wings. We shuffled through the mud after it, but the bird was rarely out of our sight and eventually landed a field not far from us, amidst some longish grass. As we watched the bird bathe in the winter sun, a dog walker came up behind us and asked if we had seen something, so I pointed out the stork with excitement. The dog walker replied that while he was not a bird watcher, he had seen the tall, white bird and had thought to himself “You’re not from around here!”

After watching the stork for twenty minutes or so, eventually it took off over the trees and out of our sight. Due to a looming deadline I had to leave, although I needn’t have rushed to see the stork during my stressful, end-of-term essay writing period, because a month on it is still residing on the marsh. That said, after a week of shoving stork photos in my boyfriend’s face I eventually took him to see it in person last week, but it wasn’t home — so much for beginner’s luck. Regardless, seeing a European white stork less than ten minutes from my house, and better yet, knowing that it’s still there, is such a thrill and a privilege. Who knows, maybe it’ll go home eventually and tell its mates of a cool new breeding spot in south-east Kent? One can dream.