Rainham

I've been trying hard to see as much of London and England as possible.  I am just a visitor here after all, and every day there is a new urgency to see anything and everything.  I'm probably not taking a transatlantic flight just to see a marsh in the future.  

One sunny and hot afternoon, I headed out to Essex to Rainham Marshes.  

It's right on the ever-widening Thames in Rainham, about a half hour outside of central London.

Here, the RSBP maintains what used to be a military training site turned bird sanctuary.

There are almost three miles of elevated boardwalk trails that meander around the marsh.  The numerous duck blinds were closed while I was there, but there are several places to get views of the ponds (which are actually craters where the military had bombed).

It was really amazing how diverse this place was.  Despite being close to a highway, a high speed train line, elevated powerlines buzzing overhead, power plants and wind farms all around, it was surprisingly wild once you got in there.

There were tons of wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies.

And just so many birds, many of them exclusive to reed and marsh habitats.  Which, like all bird habitats, is fast disappearing.

Goldfinch

Reed Warbler

Oh~  sorry about it so out of focus, but I totally saw a water vole.  They shimmy up the reed stocks and flit around nervously.  The entire time I was walking on the boardwalk over and through the reeds, I heard so many things scurrying around in the canes.  It was almost creepy.

I couldn't get to the bird blinds so I had very limited views of the marsh, but even the glimpse I could see was pretty rich.  Herons and egrets, ducks, coots and moorhens, lapwings, gulls, pipers and stilts.

I walked the 3 mile loop so slowly, I ended up getting locked in.  There were subway-stile turnstiles on the Thamesside edge, so I could get out eventually.  Hilariously, they have a drawbridge at the visitors center that they pull up at night, so you can't just hop the fence to get out.  

No one chased me out, so I enjoyed an empty marsh and watched as all the birds came down in the late afternoon.  The air was perfectly alive with bird songs; ones I had never heard before.  I don't know if anyone would have said this about this site when the military owned it, but it was enchanting.

Sedge Warblers

My one bird of prey sighting: a Marsh Harrier.  It was enormous, and every time it swooped around the marsh, all the other birds cackled in alarm.  Birds of prey are really easy to spot since any bird wanting to stay alive another day makes a racket any time one is anywhere near.

Sedge Warbler

I finally made it back to civilization i.e. the towpath.  It looked like someone had shot these house sparrows dead, but they were just flopping around in the dust.

It's worth a visit out here if you have the time or inclination.  I saw maybe 40 different species of birds, and about 10 of them I had to go home and look up because I had never seen them before.  It's a quick 10 minute walk from the Rainham train station, the visitor center is gorgeous and it has a nice cafe, and I would like to come back and sit around in the blinds overlooking the marsh ponds at some point in the future.  I'm sure the autumn migration here must be spectacular.      

Life. It's a Beach.

Some more sunshiny beachy scenes from Maine...

But the thing I get most excited about is the access to a grill.

There are no fires allowed in Paris...even if you have a backyard, you wouldn't be allowed to grill and must go make friends with people who live in the 'burbs. I hoard up grill-centric recipes all year and then go a bit crazy when I finally get there. Two things I was really happy with: Sambal Chicken Skewers from Wit and Vinegar. Don't let the fact that the marinade contains more than a half cup of hot sauce and a quarter cup of fish sauce scare you off. These were excellent. Because I was on a kebap kick, Turkish-style kebaps with a Pomegranate relish were a hit. I had a bit of trouble finding tahini paste and pomegranates in Maine, but it was worth the trouble in the end. Plus, all the good corn on the cob and veggies and I was happy to stand out in the mosquitoes while everything perfectly caramelized.

For the Birds- Marché aux Oiseaux

My favorite time to be wandering the streets in Paris are sunny Sunday mornings. The world is hungover and signs of last night's excess are littered on the sidewalks. It's almost required of you to whisper and tiptoe around the city, lest you wake the head-ached masses. If I'm motivated to get up early, the city is quiet and I can get to the market at Bastille without being crushed in the crowd, and then enjoy some wine and oysters on the sidewalk in front of Le Baron Rouge before strolling back to the maison to make a dinner with the market spoils.

So I definitely have my routine, but occasionally, I'll mix it up. One recent Sunday, we headed to île de la Cité to check out le Marché aux Oiseaux- the bird market. I had heard that there was such a thing, but it never occurred to me to actually visit until a friend in town read about it in a guide book.

Just a couple blocks from Notre Dame there is a 200 year old flower market set up at place Louis-Lépine, it's old greenhouses stretching down the block positively crammed with a riot of orchids and exotic plants and really interesting garden decorations which makes me positively crave for my own twisty-path green space with secret little pockets to decorate with treasures.

On Sundays, the exotic bird sellers step in and set up shops on the sidewalk along the greenhouses. You can hear it long before you can see it- there is a lovely symphonic chorus of hundreds of birds. While photographing birds in cages is notably tricky, I couldn't help myself. There was such a riot of color as the tiny bundle of feathers bounce from their perches.

Animals in cages always seem to make me a bit sad, and birds especially. I've never been tempted to start a collection of them despite the gorgeous vintage birdcages that beg to be collected and put to use. The willingness to wake up very early every morning combined with the melancholy of keeping a creature meant to fly in jail has always dissuaded me.

They also sold rabbits, hamsters, pigeons, doves and chickens at the market.

The tiny tropical birds were just so lovely. I can totally understand the urge to keep them as pets.