Bog Myrtle & Peat

Wading birds are coming home. I find teams of golden plover on the hill, and I wake to see the fields full of lapwings. It’s easy to rejoice after months of silent darkness, and I reach out to these birds in joy.

But even in a moment of optimism, there’s something odd and malformed about this return. The golden plover only stay for a day or two, and the lapwings break into odd, unhappy groups. They move on, and only a few remain in scattered corners. The reality is that this place isn’t what it used to be, and our fields have become thin and hostile to breeding birds. The change has come about so quickly that they can’t make sense of it. Most waders are bound to return to the place where they were hatched, and they lack the inspiration to try somewhere better. The lapwing’s thready crest bobs in confusion because he can’t fathom why what worked for his parents won’t work for him.

A lapwing has returned to the pools below the cattle. I’ve seen him every day for the last fortnight. He sings and paddles the cool breeze, but there’s no female bird to join him. It was the same story last year, and he was gone by the middle of April. Summer came and went without lapwings above those broad meadows, and that was a first in my lifetime. But the world didn’t end; things went on as normal, and I began to worry that it’s my fault for feeling it too deeply.

Lapwings stand a chance when they breed in loose communities and every bird contributes to the success of others. But these isolated loners are on the back foot from the day they return, and the question isn’t “will they fail?” but “when”? Lapwings only live for a few years, and their old habits will die with them. It won’t be long until they stop trying; now that failure is a standard, maybe resignation will be something like relief.

The curlews will last longer because they’re built to make old bones. They might live for thirty years or more, and they can put up with successive failure for longer than other birds. But even curlews are collapsing now, and it’s hard to hear them calling without a wince of dread. The chances are that our curlews will fail again this year. We’ll lose them too one day – it’ll take a little longer, but it’s coming.

Wading birds bring night songs and a flaring heft of hope. We thank them with our love, but they don’t mean to please us. They’re just playing out the pulse of some mechanical instinct, and it no longer makes sense.