Bog Myrtle & Peat

You can’t believe everything you hear at this time of year. The starlings are back, and they’ve brought snatches of song from their winter on the coast. They copy lapwings and wild duck, and they blend those tunes into songs of their own. I look up from some chore and hear redshank passing over, then realise I’ve been duped.

Two starlings stand on the pitch of the byre roof, and they trail their wings and let fly a torrent of borrowed sound. Sometimes I hear the pitch-perfect rendition of a mewling buzzard, and then there’s a jittery kestrel’s laugh. Their impressions are so immaculately sketched out that I fall for them every time. And sometimes they tease me with curlews, and my hopes are always dashed when I look up and realise that the sound was merely a scratchy repetition like a parrot’s pretty polly.

But this morning as the bull shifted his weight and wrapped his tongue around a mound of rolled oats, I heard curlews true and clear. There were two birds on the moss, and they coasted drily through the dawn. I heard them call, and there was no mistaking it.

It’s five miles to the sea and they could easily vanish again if the weather turns, but it’s hard to see this as anything but progress.