Cum on feel the noize

It's only six kilometers, as the Stork flies, from my home near Lange Erlen Park in Basel to La Petite Camargue Alsacienne across the border in France.

It is part of the old flood plain of the Rhine - which has been channelled over the years for farming, fishing and shipping - and is a haven of marsh and meadow.

Looking over the marsh, it seems an oasis of calm.

I see I am not the only foreigner here. There are immigrants feeding on the foliage. Scottish Highland Cattle trudge through the mud - a tough breed that will eat tough plants, they have been introduced to maintain the water meadows.

An unwelcome grazer on the edge of the water - the Coypu. It was introduced from South America for the fur trade, and escapees bred and spread throughout France. 

Egyptian Geese (Alopochen aegyptiaca), also brought in by man, have escaped to graze by the Rhine instead of the Nile.

But all is not calm. For it is the first day of Spring. All around me the air is filled with the activity and sounds of birds. In the isolated tall trees Cormorants, Grey Herons and Storks fly back and forth in their nest building. The Storks clatter their beaks.

In the surrounding woods and shrubs, it seems every bird is either carrying nesting material or singing - including small Wrens mousing through the reeds...

...and Nuthatches darting from tree to tree.

Overhead, a Sparrowhawk circles.

Across the marsh, on the outskirts of Basel, I can see an office tower block of my old company. I'm happier to be here in noisy nature, than there in the quiet corridors of industry.