The dawn did not come up like thunder over the Cambridgeshire Fens this morning. I was at the Nene Washes long before sunrise and the light grew gradually, seeping out from behind the clouds, sneaking out, strolling at me rather than rushing. Wildfowlers with their dogs were heading back to their cars as I headed along the floodbank and another hunter, a barn owl, had a last lethal look for voles.
It was easy to know which way to go as even in the dim light the white line of roosting swans on the Washes was clear, but even without that sign the sound of the swans travelled over the flat wet landscape. There were three species of swans - the resident mutes, the whoopers and Bewicks. The whoopers and Bewicks were moving from their roosts on the Washes to feed in the fields nearby.
The former RSPB warden of the nearby Ouse Washes, Jeremy Sorensen once told me (in 1976) that the Bewick's swan was the rarest bird I would ever see - in terms of its world population it has a small population, and the birds that come to the UK in winter form a good chunk of that population. He may be right - I'll have to think about that.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.