before, how beautiful and ridiculous they were: the long beak, combining épée and sabre, depending from a tiny head, all eyes; the colour gradations from gold to brown to white; their glorious landing glide, ending in a desperate sprawl, before, refolding themselves, they moved off in a waddling hop. The approximations of the composers – Warlock, Britten or Messiaen – hadn’t prepared me for the sad sweetness of their cry, heard only in summer but the bleak essence of winter. At first they’d mimed broken wings, trying to decoy us away from their nests, but when they got used to us they’d meet us at the frontier of their territory and escort us through like a guard of honour, flying low over our heads. Their cries developed an increasingly interrogative note: were we looking for something? Could they help? When, eco-wardening, we pulled up by the roots a patch of leprous bracken that had started to choke the ling, they swooped around, whistling in encouragement or derision. And, later, after their unusually agitated flocking had led us to the rescue of a sheep tangled up in old fence wire, they landed nearby to watch us wrestling with it, rolling their bright satirical eyes, close enough for us to smell them – awful, a compound of rot and brown sauce. In time they displayed their fledgelings, moving around in synchronized peeping trios like Tamla Motown groups. Wary of anthropomorphism, I resisted My Friend’s attempts to give them names.
