Birdwatch

DID you have your plans for Christmas Day sorted out. Mid-morning drinks with friends, Christmas meal with family? I decided to go to work. It's not the first time I have volunteered to work on Christmas Day and I hope it won't be the last.

We actually regard working on Christmas Day as a bit of treat. And before you feel too much sympathy for me, it only involves a few hours' work, giving our ducks their Christmas dinner. But it's a magical few hours and the only day of the year I have the Wetland Centre entirely to myself (it is the only day of the year we close to visitors).

So, the highlight of my Christmas Day is not presents, glasses of champagne or the feast that will result in my falling asleep in front of a Bond film (I will do this later).

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I will sit in our Peter Scott hide at dusk with a thermos of mulled wine and some turkey sandwiches and wait quietly in the cold and the darkening gloom.

Sitting quietly in a winter wetland is a deeply enjoyable experience. No shopping, no hurry, no worry about mounting credit card bills, just the cold wind, moonlight on the water and gentle calling of the various ducks and geese coming in to roost.

After a short wait, 30 feet or so above me will appear a dozen or more large white shapes against the dark sky, their bugling calls keeping the group in contact. After a couple of passes they will come in to land, with more calling and social activity.

The birds are Bewick's swans, winter visitors to Western Europe and the UK from their breeding grounds in Arctic Russia. This is the best Christmas present for me.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette December 27

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