Wings Outside the Window
Its been, I think its fair to say, a difficult spring. But as the terms of the UK's semi-lockdown begin showing signs of gradual relaxation, I'm thinking back over how, in the last couple of months, there was a gradual increase in the numbers of birds and mammals edging their ways into previously human dominated spaces. Nearly everyone I know has commented on the longer, louder, seemingly more numerous birdsong heard each morning, while we've all seen or heard of pictures of goats in hotel car parks, monkeys and deer taking over car-less roads in India or South America. But closer to home, I've noticed this phenomenon on a somewhat smaller scale. Outside Tesco in Sowerby Bridge , West Yorkshire, where the road winds into West Street - usually a bustling conveyor belt of endless traffic - I watched the twitchy snout of a nervous shrew emerging from the hedge, as the animal jutted from cover, scuffling in and out of the undergrowth as if unsure what to make of