I live in the middle of a heavily industrialised dockland. Unprepossessing? Not a bit of it. A ten-minute walk towards the town centre may give me goosander, eider, cormorant, a whole raft of gulls, mainly herring and lesser-blackbacked (in a month or so I'll be able to watch lesser black-bach chicks being raised in the shadow of the town hall). I swear I've seen a peregrine hunting from the big crane (no, unfortunately not that kind of crane) but have heard no confirmatory reports. Only slightly further afield there are goldfinches and stonechats amongst the gorse on the dunes, and all manner of shorebirds on the miles of unspoilt and uncommercialised beach. A huge flock of starlings performs an aerial ballet every evening at sunset before roosting in the bridge over the docks.
Am I lucky or what? Would I go back to the Home Counties? Gerrawaywithyou, as my dad would have said!
(Pardon the Scottish Accent)