A walk on the Heath

Spring is here! It looked like it was going to be a lovely day today, so what better thing to do in North London than go for a walk on the Heath?

Over 800 acres of meadow and woodland, Hampstead Heath is one of London’s iconic green spaces. It’s one of my favourite places in London too — I enjoy the occasional swim in the Men’s Pond (I love wild swimming, but I’m not brave or crazy enough to do so regularly all year round), Kenwood House is a nice place to visit, there are some lovely pubs on the edges (my two favourites are the two Flasks, one in Hampstead and the other in Highgate; the ‘Flask to Flask’ walk in either direction is a good one) and I love walking there — even when the Heath gets busy (and it does), there’s always a quiet bench somewhere to get away from the numbers. Sometimes I even indulge in a bit of tree climbing, just because I can. 

The bird life there’s fantastic too. I’ve seen Kestrels there, woodpeckers of the Green and Great Spotted varieties as well as lots of water birds on the Heath’s many ponds. The information boards say that Sparrowhawks hunt there, which I can well believe although I’ve never seen one (not there, anyway) and I have heard Tawny Owls when I’ve been there at night (indeed, my main motivation for being there after dark was to try and spot owls in the grey pre-dawn; no such luck). One thing I never seem to see much of on the Heath is the smaller birds; there tend to be too many people (and dogs) to allow for those to be seen easily. 

It was a lovely spring day, weatherwise; no rain, cloudy with sunny intervals and enough of a breeze to make you know that summer’s not here yet. I took the Tube to Belsize Park and walked up Parliament Hill for the view over London, and then meandered north. 

I saw Carrion Crows (lots of those, the most seen at any one point was 39), Magipes, the inevitable Ring-necked Parakeets, Feral Pigeons and Woodpigeons. A few Jackdaws and a Jay. For the smaller ones, I heard several Robins before I actually saw one and then clocked a couple of  Great Tits on one of the feeders in the fenced-off area by the Bird Sanctuary Pond. 

On the nearby Model Boating Pond (when did anyone last sail model boats on it, I wonder) there was plenty of waterfowl — Mallards, Tufted Ducks (described by someone within my earshot as “the most duck-like ducks”, which I think is a wonderful quote that sums them up), a pair of Great Crested Grebes (not indulging in their elaborate mating ritual, alas), a pair of Mute Swans and (also) a pair of loud Egyptian Geese that were honking at anything that went near them. 

Over on the Men’s Pond, there were plenty of gulls — Herring, Black-headed and Lesser Black-backed, and a couple of Cormorants. 

I finished by wandering up to Kenwood House, browsing the second-hand bookshop there (a hardback copy of Birds Britannica was too tempting to resist, and I look forward to perusing it!) before walking up to Highgate to get the bus home. Twenty species seen in total. A good day’s walk on a good day for walking.