Wetlands in a wet winter

Off to the end of the road to see how our wetlands are faring in winter. I don my pair of Barbour wellies and set off up ul. Trombity towards the boggy reed beds, unclaimed by any landowner, home to frogs and black-faced gulls and quite wild. Spoilt only by tons of dumped household and building waste (I'm in favour of stiff penalties against fly-tippers - like their rotting junk being taken to their homes and shovelled into their bedrooms and kitchens), this is an urban naturalist's paradise.

Before taking the shot (right) of the reeds, I first have to remove several polythene bread bags, an empty jam jar and several beer and vodka bottles.

By late-March, the reed beds will be full of the sound of mating frogs and toads, while overhead black-headed gulls will circle and screech.

In 2003, the summer had been so dry and so long that the reed beds dried out altogether, dry enough to walk through, and causing a population catastrophe among the local amphibians. Since then, we've had wetter summers.

The only real sign of winter in Jeziorki's wetlands could be found here at this pond, frozen solid - thick enough for me to stand on. At the edges, the ice had melted, but the middle was still entirely sound. This is puzzling, as the temperature has not dipped below zero for over a week now. Ice has disappeared from all other standing water other than a thin crust on some puddles.

Look at these photographs and ponder. They were all taken less than eight miles from the very centre of Warsaw - the Palace of Culture. Can you imagine such landscapes in West Ealing (eight miles from London's Centre Point?) Or Winchmore Hill? Or Norbury? Or Newham (all equidistant from Centre Point)? That, for a London boy, is the attraction of Jeziorki.

Above: On my travels I came across the carcass of a dead fox. It seemed to have been dead for some time. Of what did it die? Hunger, hypothermia, predator attack, road traffic accident, rabies or just old age? I expect to return in some months to find the bones picked clean. So does nature recycle itself.