Читать книгу Bill Oddie’s How to Watch Wildlife - Stephen Moss - Страница 22

_ If there is a really cold spell, especially with ice and snow, it is well worth wrapping up and getting out there. Animals and birds tend to lose their fear when they are cold and hungry, which means you may get some specially good close-up views. Wildfowl have to crowd into whatever tiny bit of the local lake or reservoir is left unfrozen.

I kept borrowing Dad’s car and slipping down to Slimbridge, but no luck. So what did I do? I turned to crime. Or at least delinquency. I would wait until there were no Trust staff in sight, then I’d scramble over a locked gate, scuttle across a muddy field, dive behind a hawthorn hedge and crawl under cover until I finally reached the ‘safety’ of a derelict concrete ‘pill box’, which during the war would have ‘guarded’ the river banks in case Britain was invaded via the Severn.

From there I did actually get some pretty cracking views of the geese and, on occasions, I was surrounded by the flock. The problem then was that I didn’t dare to try and crawl back to the gate, in case I put up the whole flock and got caught trespassing. More than once I had to lie in the pill box, among cowpats and rotting rabbits, until it was pitch dark and the geese had flown off to roost. By the time I’d stumbled my way through the mud and barbed wire and raced back to Birmingham, Dad had usually gone to bed. Next morning, I simply lied a bit about how late I had been.

The irony is that I never did see a lesser white-front. Well, not until nearly 30 years later, when I was invited to Slimbridge by Sir Peter Scott himself. It was at that moment that I felt I simply had to confess my sins, and give myself up. I am happy to report that instead of prosecuting me for trespassing, he invited me to sit on the council of the WWT.

I – no, we all – have a lot to thank Peter Scott for. He was a truly great man.