11.05.18 – A beautiful sunny evening

The evening light was hazy with midges, revelling irritatingly all around. Suddenly, punching above the weight of every other song among the reeds and trees, a Sedge Warbler sang. It permeated the air space so emphatically, I stopped to listen. A moment later, a conversation began between barbed wire and willow branch perchers. One in the shade, the other choosing light. Its chirpyness sings in song all the giddy amazement I feel when I’m out in nature.

I wonder sometimes, how other people feel. If they sense the privilege of hearing a bird like the Sedge Warbler, who has travelled, often in one continuous flight, from the Sahara; to grace the summer with its crackling excitement.

Edward Thomas sums it up perfectly in the last verse of The Sedge Warblers, a poet who fitted a lifetime’s worth of poetry in two years. He died during the First World War. He had the heart and soul of a well tuned naturalist:

Their song that lacks all words, all melody. All sweetness almost, was dearer to me Than sweetest voice that sings in tune sweet words. This was the best of May, the small brown birds. Wisely reiterating endlessly What no man learnt in or out of school

Thanks for the lovely response to the idea of this diary!

Have a wild weekend

Dara