15 May 2010 – Coming home

As the kombi drew up in the dark and silent centre of Bačka Topola at a bleary One in the morning a taxi appeared from nowhere, so thanks to Zsolt who was on night duty, we woke up in out own bed in comfort and at leisure after the long journey from the Welsh borders via Budapest to “our” village. Culture clashes had already begun. Whilst dropping off the car before leaving a skinny girl was hissing down the phone in a Polish (or Ukrainian?) accent 'They keep leaving the door open and it makes my teeth hurt!' Slavs hate draughts; is it genetic or cultural? Brits tend to throw open windows and prop open doors to stop their heads hurting. The next culture clash came with my polite message to a favourite taxi driver in Topola asking if he might “possibly bear to turn out at One in the morning” to take us the final 20km home. The text message came back instantly and succinctly 'Ne'! I can't blame him but something more helpful would have been welcome.

The first day is usually a day of chores, reporting to the police, paying bills, and surveying the garden and various nest boxes. But there was still time to visit the village lake, now in full breeding fervour. Even at Three in the morning I could hear the bittern “boom” from our bed; it is more of a blowing over an empty bottle sound, but none the less can carry for a couple of km. Night herons stood sentinel waiting for their prey. Little bitterns flew piebald and surprisingly energetically from one dense reed bed to another. A Purple heron flew over and sometimes 3 marsh harriers together hunted over the reeds, gliding and stalling, wings up and heads down. Great reed warblers grated and chafed. Yellow eyed frogs swam past wearily, all eyes and passion in this war for survival. Somewhere deep in the reeds and out of site the Little grebe called. Youths fished for carp, and old men rode past on bicycles, fishing poles held tight. Cuckoos called and chased each other, long tailed and angrily. Great crested grebes and pochards came out of their reed beds to sail over the open water.

Walking home in the damp cool gloom, empty beer bottle and mugs clanking in the rucksack, we spotted a pair of kingfishers in the stream. So despite the very hard winter, when the whole watery world would have been locked up for weeks, they somehow survived. The dazzling azure river of kingfisher genes flows on to delight us and terrify minnows.