It’s Saturday at about 4pm. Regrettably, this is the time in which the sun starts setting now. Having just been on a beautiful autumnal run, I decide to venture out and enjoy the last remnants of daylight. The sunset yesterday was immense. Clouds covered a great deal of the sky, but there was a gap just above the horizon and the sun made a short final appearance before finally going to bed for the evening (in truth, it was moving onto its Vancouver shift). The sky glowed orange and various dog walkers paused to enjoy the serenity.

This evening is different – it is cloudy and the sun is nowhere to be seen. There is, however, still a nice ambient glow on the water. A milder hue of purple with pale yellow glistening ripples reflecting the gentle light. I can’t complain. The sun shone when she needed to today and charged up my batteries nicely from the solar panels. She deserves a rest. It is a calm, still evening and I am enjoying being outside. The absence of the sun has given me a chance to look elsewhere. Gulls are swarming in their masses around a child and their parents on the towpath. They must have food. A flock of starlings passes overhead. Then another. And another. And another. They don’t stop coming. I find myself entertained for half an hour watching them move in their swarms like clock work. As one flock disappears into the distance, another reappears in the opposite direction. Flocks of varying size. One group is so almighty and flies so close by that I can hear the gentle unified flutter of their wings like the patter of rain on a puddle. I am thankful to be in a place so quiet that I am able to hear and appreciate this beauty. A heron soars overhead in the opposite direction. They really are clunky ridiculous-looking birds. I love them. Sometimes when I am cycling, I see one in the distance ahead. They take off following a glimpse of me, only to land a few hundred meters further along, repeating this process again and again as if I am ushering them home with me.

One year ago, I don’t think I knew the names of all the different birds, except perhaps the London basics – pigeons and ducks. Even with that said, I am still not confident of the difference between town pigeons and wood pigeons, other than that one looks notably filthier than the other and I only recently learned that ducks with green heads are boy ducks and ducks with sort of brown heads matching their near-leopard print feather jackets are in fact girl ducks. It should have been obvious really. I’d love to say that I don’t see gender and all I see is the duck. To be fair, this is 100% true. But my sister pointed out this differentiating factor a few years back and now I will always see a brown-headed duck and call her “love”, whilst greeting all shiny green-headed ducks with “alright, lad”? And they are proper lads. A month or two ago, from my side hatch, I witnessed duck sex for the first time. The boy duck got on top of the girl duck and the weight of the geeza submerged girl duck fully under the water for the duration of the experience. She was probably fundamentally quite happy that it was only a quickie. The whole process was about 10 seconds long (a marathon effort by some peoples’ standards). Boy duck dismounted and proceeded to do zoomies around girl duck whilst she collected herself. He was obviously dead chuffed with himself for having impregnated girl duck. Everyone is getting some except me.

There is a hierarchy of canal side birds. There are no points going for ducks, pigeons, coots, moorhens and swans (by the way, I hate swans). Meanwhile, it is notable, but not a triumph, to witness a heron, tit, robin, cormorant, kite or sparrow. These birds are fairly common, but all thoroughly entertaining in their own right.

Herons – basically a dinosaur bird that inexplicably survived the meteor and is really stuck up about it and despising of this modern world.

Tits – just really quite cute.

Robins – equally cute, but also Christmassy which is nice.

Cormorants – they bob around pretentiously before disappearing under water only to reappear miles away out of your phone camera’s range.

Kites – flies like a kite.

Sparrows – tiny goofballs.

Notice that I have failed to mention Canadian Geese anywhere. These birds are arseholes. I spent many months on the London canals and it was never the late night drunks that kept me up all night. It was these pricks honking away at 4am. I can literally hear one as I am typing this.

It is worth addressing the matter of swans. Yes, they look nice. Yes, they’re your way in with the royal family if that’s something you care about. But fundamentally, they are bad people. I was once sat reading a book in Aylesbury basin and a swan comes right up to me and gives me a proper hiss. What’s that about? It’s a big basin. You have your patch and I have mine. Why the turf war? The Aylesbury Arm has a pretty narrow towpath at certain points (a perfect recipe for cycling into the canal – see previous post). I have found myself facing swan blockades on the towpath before. There is literally no means of getting past. I don’t wanna go near those blighters – not when they’re hissing. Tony once nearly crushed a swan whilst mooring up outside a Tesco (it was completely the swan’s fault for being an idiot and it was very much in a blind spot). A little girl exclaimed “look daddy, they’re going to kill that swan”. Helpful. I quickly pushed the bow of the boat out allowing the swan to escape. Swans, you owe me. The least you can do is not be dicks. Two months ago, when Caitlin and Olly visited, we saw a bloody swan drifting past. The beast was entirely red down one side. It was quite morbid. Is there a Tesco nearby? We were bemused later on to witness a man somewhat wrestle the swan and start examining it. He could have been from a swan or wildlife charity, or perhaps him and that swan had met earlier that day and he was back for round two. I summarise with a final remark – I am sure that was not the swan’s own blood.

This discussion concludes with the trophy of canal birds, never to be seen for more than a moment, but impossible to miss if you are looking in the right direction – the kingfisher. On my first long voyage with Tony – an 8am cruise in January 2023, I was surprised by the sheer delight in his voice as he cried “kingfisher!” I looked in the direction of his finger and caught the swift passing of a vibrant blue. Embarrassingly, I had never heard of such birds before then. Now, I see them fairly often and the sight still fills me with a sense of triumph. Many times it is on cruises, but occasionally I see them on a run or during a cycle ride. Like witnessing a shooting star or a child falling flat on their face, it packs a punch of joy that lifts my spirits and gets me through the day to come. Not like swans. Swans can piss off.