I now move onto fortnightly bird ‘watching outings’ with my guide who meets me at the bus-stop close to the bird reserve. We were doing monthly or less during the recent winter months but now the birds are active and the summer visitors arriving and for this last week’s trip, the weather was splendid. It was chilly at first and I was glad for my coat but once at the reserve it was soon discarded. Waterside birds are very noisy. I could easily identify the honking of Canada geese and the different call of the grey-lags. Being blind(folded) the sounds do get confusing and when my guide said there were swallows flying low over the water (which I couldn’t hear) I had one of the occasional moments of regret at having made the choice to be blind for the time-being. I do prefer it when we make a detour into the adjacent woodland – robins every 5 yards it seems, blackbirds, thrushes and now the chiff-chaffs, first of the visitors from over seas or perhaps second to the swallows. Any real experts out there?
My journey both ways was exactly to plan – as it has to be when you are blind and travelling unaccompanied, of course.
We were not far from where the cliffs have been falling into the sea as some of you might have seen on the TV News. Would I like to go there my guide asked? There’s a thought! But I declined on the grounds we could no longer get lunch there and I wouldn’t be able to see much would I! He laughed politely.