Sit at a wetland until you can tell three birds apart

The Recipe

1. Leave early, before the day warms up, and head to the nearest wetland reserve or estuary you can reach by public transport.
2. Find the first hide or bench at the water and sit down without walking the whole loop first.
3. For the first hour, just look. Do not reach for your phone to identify anything yet.
4. Pick three birds you keep seeing and learn to tell them apart by shape and movement, not colour.
5. Walk one slow loop of the water at midday, stopping whenever something moves.
6. Sit a second time at a different spot and stay until the light starts to flatten.
7. Take the way back you did not come by, if there is one.