I lived for a time in St. John’s Wood, a leafy, residential neighborhood in northwest London known for its stately brick homes and the famed Abbey Road Studios. I was working part-time and taking graduate courses at University College London (UCL) in Bloomsbury, which was about two miles from my flat and accessible via either a 30-minute ride on the stuffy, sardine tin that is the Tube, or a 45-minute pleasant stroll through the park. Barring exceptionally uncooperative weather, I often chose the latter.
My route would take me through the southern end of Regent’s Park, cutting through at the St. George and the Dragon statue by the London Central Mosque on the west side and exiting at Park Square on the southeast end. Following this same path twice a day, two to three times a week, I became intimately familiar with its features – the bridge over the Boating Lake and the island that floated in it, the flowerbeds and fountains along Broad Walk – and the park’s resident wildlife – tufted ducks, greylag geese, mute swan, and other varieties of waterfowl.
A Growing Fondness
Though an avowed animal lover all my life, I had never felt much of a liking for birds of any sort, with the possible exception of the small songbird variety that fluff up round during the winter months and hop-flit along the ground. It’s not that I had a disliking for the beaked and feathered, but more that I didn’t really concern myself with them one way or another.
My walks in Regent’s Park changed that. Indifference developed into interest which evolved over time into fondness, and though I have yet to don a pair of binoculars alongside the local bird watching club, that appreciation has stayed with me. Initially, my interest was out of a sense of entertainment more than anything. I found an inordinate amount of amusement in watching birds squabble with each other, chase torn bread and people and dogs that got a little too close, and waddle comically out of the path of oncoming pedestrians. I often sensed (perhaps erroneously) that I was the only passerby to observe and find humor in these encounters, an intimacy that only served to enrich this connection that I felt to the park and its wildlife.
Sometimes though, the joke was on me. Once, I had the unfortunate timing to be hit by a spray of pigeon excrement as I passed under a large tree. With no recourse to water or soap, I was obliged to walk the rest of the way to campus with the dripping grey-green ooze painting my hair and shirt.
The Exotic Urban Park
Gradually, through my regular visits, I became aware of the rich and varied biodiversity that is present in that urban oasis. Home to over 200 species of birds, Regents is fairly bursting with life. On several occasions, after weeks of seeing all the usual suspects of coots and grebes, I would happen across something completely new, a species I hadn’t seen before. I felt a bit like an intrepid explorer-biologist, discovering new and rare species in the wild, untamed reaches of the exotic urban park.
I marked the passing of the year by the flow of the seasons as they left their mark on the landscape. The chill of winter thawed to the bloom of spring and ushered in downy broods of tripping chicks that patrolled the banks of the lake. The blaze of summer brought crowds keen for strolling and sporting and picnicking to the park’s green lawns and shaded benches.
Tweedy Bird
I recall also a strange fascination with the beautifully intricate coloring and patterning of feathers. The hunter green, taupe, and rust roaning of the Egyptian Goose conjured images of hacking jackets. The subdued, herringboned browns and beiges of the Gadwall recalled English tweeds and university hall blazers. The common coot, seemingly unremarkable in its black plumage, until emerging on land, its bizarre lobed feet were revealed, resembling palmate leaves ribbed with a network of dark veins.
On several occasions, I caught the bright green flash of one of the park’s resident ring-necked parakeets as it flew overhead. The surprise at seeing this exotic fugitive outside of the setting of a pet store never quite left me. And this is part of the beauty that Regents Park offers – a sense of wonder and delight in the ordinary and the expected.
I could watch the same woman throw bread at a clamorous mob of birds every morning and find it touching. I could walk by the same towering timeworn tree everyday and feel a sense of awe and mystery at its gnarled limbs. I might witness new fledglings welcomed to the world every spring and still have that sense of expectancy and joy upon that first sighting. These are the moments in which we find beauty and closeness to nature. These are the reasons this park resides fondly in my memory as a special and cherished place of beauty.
