Easter's fast approaching and I swear I've got some eggs in my birdbox. The resident blue tits don't seem to mind that a mere couple of metres away, the Stansted Express thunders past northwards bound.
A host of tits, finches and others have been criss-crossing the garden, busy carrying scraps of food and nesting material. Even the jays have been active, snatching food from the bird table.
Another heart-lifting thing is the fresh growth and buds that have suddenly appeared on the mixed bag of hedging plants I put in a month ago. I was almost losing faith in my new hedge. You see, my neighbour, Diana, bought some hawthorn and planted hers alongside mine, at the end of our gardens. This is great for wildlife and the view. Nevertheless, I was seized by garden envy. Her plants all had healthy shoots and mine were dry twigs. The green mist of envy that hung over my head like a dishcloth encrusted with the greasy residue of a dirty grill pan left to fester in a washing up bowl for a week, has lifted. My hedge is alive!
You can't help but wonder at the resilience of nature? London's bursting with wildlife. The parks, gardens, rivers, railway and canal embankments are all abuzz. Giant bumblebees, a seal in the Thames, peregrines over the Tate Modern and at the last count, a half dozen young herons at Battersea Park. If it weren't for my youngest waking up in the middle of the night with the irritation of a molar tooth coming through, I'd be feeling like a spring lamb in a field of verdant green grass.
That's the surface impression. When things are this good you can't help but wonder what troubled waters lie beneath. Our campaign to inspire people to question biofuels for example has had a tremendous response. I'm delighted to say most of it is positive, but we could do with more people writing to Ruth Kelly to express their views.
When you make a stand on an issue, some negative responses are inevitable. One letter I read concerns London Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson's idea to build an International airport in the Thames Estuary. The writer claimed the RSPB never speaks out about birds killed by wind turbines, yet criticises us for opposing the airport because it's in one of the UK's busiest wildlife corridors and would inevitably lead to planes and birds coming in to fatal conflict. If you do a quick web-search on the subjects of the Lewis wind farm and the London Array, you'll find our views are always considered but quite clear. As a conservation charity, we support development; in the right place. Thanks to our supporters and members, we can speak-up for wildlife, loud enough to match the gilt-edged voices demanding approval for lucrative schemes. It's not that we know best, we just work damn hard to deliver the best.
So, back in my garden. It still has a vast expanse of concrete slabs. There is a living hedge and a host of birds and other wildlife. By this time next year, I aim to have a lawn and a mixture of native trees and shrubs instead of patio-slabs. I hope the great tits in my nestbox return and that the Stansted Express is still running; but preferably using clean energy. However, I also hope that plans for a Thames Estuary airport are but a dim and distant memory, scrapped because it obviously is NOT the best. Not for wildlife, for people, the environment nor the economy.