I’d finally convinced myself to pick up my bag and go. Driving down the road I was still telling myself it was a waste of time, and I should really be spending more time sat on the couch, watching telly. It was a dull day, grey skies, awful light, not good for photography, perfect for eating crisps.

I park the car, pull on my boots, pick up my camera bag & tripod, and remind myself of the pointlessness of coming out. There are people and dogs everywhere, dogs running through the woodland, children shrieking and playing. Any interesting wildlife will be miles away from all the disturbance, so I decide to go where there are no people. This means a struggle through mud, brambles, and nettles, to get close to where a large mixed flock of geese and waders are settled, and if I’m lucky, maybe a kingfisher too.

I don’t want to risk scaring the geese away, so I move through the thickest undergrowth, trying to be as quiet as I can. Angry at my intrusion, the brambles have organised themselves into a formidable tangle around 150m long, which in some places comes up to my neck. Some are out in the open and easy to see, some concealed beneath bracken and other soft looking plants, waiting to ambush me when I least expect it. I tread carefully, every step considered, like walking through a minefield. Pushing down the highest trailing spikes with my tripod, and then stepping over them, before letting them spring back into place. Most of the time this works. Sometimes the brambles manage to struggle free and spring up as I step over, gripping tightly to a leg, and pulling me backwards. I scream silently.

After around forty minutes of toil, I am almost in position, torn to pieces, bleeding, but nearly there. And despite the best efforts of the brambles, a worthy adversary, the geese have no idea that I am so close.

As I stand waist high in brambles wondering whether I’ll need a transfusion, I hear a high pitched whistle. Then another. And another. It is a dog whistle. The dog, a border collie, is busy ignoring the whistle, and charging toward the geese. Its owner is casually blowing the dog whistle, while browsing a mobile phone.

Unsure of the dogs intentions, the geese decide to leave; making a noise like a drunk rugby team trying unsuccessfully, and repeatedly, to get out of a ball-pool full of dog toys. The dog, its job not yet complete, splashes noisily in the water, patrolling backward and forward along the shoreline, wondering why everyone has left.

I’m standing neck high in brambles slowly sinking into the stinking mud with nothing to photograph. I can hear the brambles laughing all around me. Without moving I try to silently project my feelings of rage toward the dog and its owner. It doesn’t work. Possibly because of the blood loss. I’m now fully convinced that I should have stayed on the couch, and I need to figure out the least painful way to get back to it.

But, as I stand quietly seething at the brambles which have now wrapped around the inside of my upper thigh, I notice a kingfisher in a willow around 5m away. It’s looking right at me. Fortunately, both legs and my right arm are now caught in the brambles. The kingfisher is just sitting there, watching the spectacle unfold. I give up struggling and just stand and watch for a couple of minutes. Me looking at the kingfisher, the kingfisher looking at me.

I enjoy those moments of connection with nature, looking into the eyes of another species, while it takes account of you. But this isn’t that.

I manage to untangle myself enough to raise the camera to my eye, tripod dangling, tangled, and useless, and take a quick photo. It wasn’t good, but at least I had something to show for my efforts. Despite the continued efforts of the brambles, who had regrouped and were mounting a counter-attack, the kingfisher stayed where it was. There seemed to be an agreement between us. I stay where I am in the brambles, and the kingfisher will let me watch and take photos as he goes about his business.

He started to dive into the water, sometimes coming up with a fish, other times with an empty beak and wet feathers. Taking long breaks in between bouts of feeding.

I’m bent almost double, back aching, wrapped in brambles, tripod still hanging from my camera, rucksack weighing me down. The nettles join the fray, sensing the imminent victory of the brambles. I manage to release and drop my tripod, and then dump my rucksack, which brings a little relief. A small victory.

Every time the kingfisher dives, he returns to a different perch; and I have to move and struggle in the brambles, and contort myself into less and less comfortable, and increasingly painful positions, to get a clear view through the tangle.

It took me a while to realise, but he was doing it on purpose. Laughing at the man sweating and bleeding and tangled in brambles, while he swallowed another fish. After about an hour another kingfisher arrives, and they fly away together to another perch further down the shoreline, where they sit laughing as one kingfisher relays its tale to the other.

Now fully humiliated by a small bird and an army of brambles and their allies, I decide that it is a good time to extract myself from the tangle, and go home. I rip myself free, flop, injured over a barbed wire fence, and limp the easy route back along the edge of the field alongside a hedgerow, as a flock of curlew in tight formation perform a fly-by overhead, and the geese mock, cackle, and honk, in the distance.