My Local Patch

Willowbeck - my little patch.

My local patch is not in the middle of the countryside. It doesn’t have a serene babbling brook where only dippers can be seen bobbing on the rocks scattered through it. It doesn’t have a pristine, native woodland towering up to the sky, where pied flycatchers nest and goshawks hide in the shade of ancient pines.

Nope.

In fact, it’s about 30 seconds away from a Homebase store. And on the other side, there is a Pets at Home, and a factory that sends the odd whiff of pet food down your way. Nevertheless, this is my patch and it has been for a few years now. It is a small river called willow beck. It has the odd shopping trolley or foster’s can in it, but it’s my tiny patch of wild. On the river, I’ve seen kingfishers trailing their blue behind them, mallards pairing up and snoozing on the banks, and grey wagtails flitting on the rocks. On the tiny patch of frail birch woodland that fringes the river, a kestrel has taken up residence. I watched her all through the winter. Each day I went I’d find her perched on the top of her favourite birch, watching the world tick by slowly beneath her through her liquidescent eyes.

And one summer day, strolling along and nodding hello to the odd dog-walker, I heard a horrendous screeching from the birches. Wandering between the spindly legs of the trees, I look up and notice a large messy platform of twigs. A nest. Beneath it is the odd downy pigeon feather and white droppings that spatter down the tree and on the nettles below like when your painting the new house and attempted in vain to not get the wall paint all over the skirting boards. . .

I crouch down a few metres away to see what lives at this nest, as it is far too high up to see into. Within five minutes, a broad shouldered, handsome bird with soft orange breast-feather barring and dark mantles alights onto the nest. It’s a sparrowhawk nest. Although sparrowhawks aren’t a rare bird, I had never before had the luck of finding the nest of one, so it was a very special find for me.

In the long lazy days of summer, the river runs slow and the small fish (minnows and sticklebacks) flow through its water like raindrops running their paths down the window glass.  But sure enough – summer is always over in a flash. . . but I never feel sad at this time, because there’s always things to be joyful about. Mutations of fieldfares and crowds of redwings begin to gather around this wonderful site. Where do I find them? Well . . . on the football field, of course.

My patch is nothing unusual, or some untouched wilderness, and I don’t need a car, bus, train or even a bicycle, to get there. A patch could be anywhere nearby, whether it’s the local park, farmland, a small patch of woodland, lake or beaches. It doesn’t have to have a menagerie of endangered species taking up residence on its land. So what I mean to say is, if you haven’t got your little patch of magic yet: go find it. 

Amy