The human
Home is a flat in one of these three-story blocks, arranged in a rectangle alongside the Lea navigation in East London. In passing you might not see much beyond the bricks and parked cars. But sit for five minutes where the square meets the canal, and you’ll find an abundance of life, particularly in the air.
The canal is a home and thoroughfare for birds. We also have a colony of house martins nesting through the summer and a family of starlings living in the block by the entrance year-round. Just north, there’s a small wood, marshes that flood in the winter, and an arterial A-road cutting into the city. It’s the most at home I’ve felt in ten years living in London.
I worry sometimes about the precariousness of all this life in a city. But if a kingfisher can find sprats in the murky canal, it must be an ecosystem embedded with a degree of stability.
The starling
Oh yeah, I see him. Most mornings actually. He steps out of his den, sniffs the air, then walks over to where I perch, on this TV aerial, to hear me sing. I think he enjoys it. He smiles, and sometimes gets his phone out and taps on it.
The singing isn’t for him though. I have to practice. I have to let my family and partner know I’m here. Keping watch, capable, and learning. They love it when I find new sounds. Ringtones are go down well. Dogs, they find funny. But when I do other birds, it can sometimes scare them.
I was brought up in the big park just to the west of here, over the car river. Do you know it? Most of my sisters and brothers and their families still nest there. We fly over sometimes and spend the afternoon learning what they’ve been seeing and doing.
I found our nest here a few years ago. There’s the entrance through those vents in the roof. It’s great. I have to ward off the occasional stranger, but it’s worth it. Warm at night. No rain. It’ll be our second brood here. In fact, you’ll be able to meet our new starlings soon. They’ll be fledging in a couple of weeks.
The apartment blocks
We’ve been here since 1991, brick-by-hand-built-brick. Day after day, after day. We’ve seen families come and go, couples love and break, people from all around the world, and a hundred thousand birds. We are here each day, holding and cradling life. In our foundations, eaves and cavities, alongside our bankside hedges, and in the moss and lichen of the tarmac. We see it all and feel it all. The vibrations of life. The tunnelling, scampering and foraging. The conflicts and embraces. The prowling, hunting, and drifting. We even have our own climate. Within our brick valley walls, heat spirals and cold pools. We hide and contain your nature. Always here, watching, weathering, waiting.
Written for Granta’s nature writing workshop, 2025.