Bog Myrtle & Peat

Lapwings returned with a low moon rise and the prickle of stars. They fell to the marsh like shuttles and the yard was filled with their gurly moans as I worked at the peat stack and turned the wet faces to the wind.

Fifty of these birds have been roosting below the turnip field all week, but this moon is fat and full and it seemed to baffle their sleep. When night came, I lay in bed and listened to them speaking quietly beneath a wide and hangy light. Perhaps they murmured in their sleep, restless nappers in the dewsome grass. Or perhaps their squabbles rolled over into the gloom, short tempered and fidgety as kids.

And every gentle call brought me to a smile, and a quiet word of gratitude that in a world of decline and loss, I am lucky enough to have these sounds about me.