19.
NORTH ESSEX WILDLIFE
When I learned that I could occupy some rooms in
a tied cottage in North Essex I was not quite as
delighted as one would expect a keen naturalist to be.
One reason being that although it is over a mile from
the nearest village it is not nearly as remote as it
sounds. As the bottom of the garden trains roar to
and from London and a mere 300 yards in the other
direction, traffic incessantly screams along the A12
"motorway style" trunk road.
The countryside there is hardly pleasing to the
eye - flat as a pancake, all arable fields punctuated
only by the odd elms and farm buildings.
If I hadn't had to live there I would have deemed
this area entirely unworthy of note. How wrong I was!
The birdlife for such an intensely farmed area is
very exciting. Within a 11/2 mile radius I have dis-
covered 11 Common Whitethroat territories, including
my garden. Elsewhere this bird is becoming very
uncommon due to so few being able to get here in the
summer because their feeding grounds in North Africa
are turning into desert.
Tree Sparrows nest in a hawthorn bush in the
garden only feet away from its precocious cousin, the
the House Sparrow, and a redlegged Partridge hatched
10 young in the grass trials just behind the cottage.
Kestrels raised three young in some dying elms
near the farm, and it was one calm, warm summer
evening that I watched the young birds taking their
first flights. Two may already have flown before as
they maintained their height far better than the
third, which launched itself from the nest and soared
round the tree, decreasing in height, until it lunged
for a passing branch, and after a few dodgy seconds,