It's like a cloud that has drifted down into the copse. Above, a woodpecker pecks, but I can't see him. I did see a hole in a tree, high up, an old hole, I think, not this year's nesting space. I wished I could climb climb up up and see inside. Maybe a few downy feathers remain?
In my garden now I see two robins each day. They arrive as soon as they hear the door open and close. One is sleek and shiny. His feathers sit like the livery of a high-class footman. The other is a little smaller and somewhat ruffled in appearance. Both are brave enough to pick suet from the feeder while I still stand there. They eye me with shiny black beads and flutter glide down to land and leave again. If they are afraid of my presence, which they sometimes are, they flit from branch to branch above me and squeak.
When I sit outside, the female blackbird and female sparrow pick up loose seeds near my chair. The male blackbird keeps his wife between me and him. Tits come in pairs. The pigeons are noisy, their wings flap like sails, and nervous too. The magpie comes in late afternoon, alone.
When out in the fields, I see butterflies and bees. The hawk that roosts along the side of the road and flies just ahead of me along the road, as though daring me to rush him in his progress.
At the vet today, I met a man whose whippet was bitten by a fox in his garden. The fox climbed in over a six foot fence, through the flowerbeds and back out over another six foot fence with the whippet snapping at his tail. And limping.
Ah, foxy, how much I want to see you. You and the hares.
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