Newsflash - London not so filthy after all!

It’s official! London really isn’t that dirty anymore! Well, the wetlands around Greater London aren’t anyway. Squacco herons haven’t been seen in the vicinity of my home town for a century and a half, but one was spotted in Crossness Nature Reserve in Bexley on the 29th of May. More importantly, the bird didn’t take one sniff of the local sights and hotfoot it home again, it’s been there ever since. The nature reserve has recently spend a hefty wedge on regenerating their wildlife zones, so they’re understandably delighted.

The heron was last seen in London in 1866. For a little historical perspective, that was the middle of Queen Victoria‘s reign, the year after Abraham Lincoln died, and the year (according to wikipedia) that Darwin decided to grow his fantastic world-beating beard. 1866 was also the year the urinal was patented, the year that the Canadian Parliament met for the first time, and the year that root beer and dynamite were invented. But all of those events are frankly boring compared to the last known sighting of a squacco heron in north west London. So the arrival of one of these small beige birds (it’s London, of course the bird would be beige, no hot pink flamingoes for us) after such a long time is big news for British twitchers (and anyone who cares about a nice clean environment).

Via BBC News.