Bog Myrtle & Peat

The same old impossible thing happened last night. A hundred thousand woodcock came across the North Sea by the light of a tall and doughty moon. It happens every year, but it never ceases to astonish me.

More will come tonight and in the next few months until a million woodcock have found their way over from Russia and Finland and the quiet, leaf-curled corners beyond the sea. It’s extraordinary; beyond magical that these birds should come here in such abrupt quantity and yet their arrival is never marked by newscasters. There are no woodcock on the front page of the papers this morning. It’s an event as significant and uplifting as any national news item, but the information (like the birds themselves) simply slides in beneath the radar.

The woods were somehow thicker this morning. Bracken hangs in moody palms, and the willows are suddenly scant. Every bush is dripping and loud with redwings, whose numbers grow like fruiting fungus. Knowing that woodcock had come under the moon and feeling them around me, it was no surprise to see the dogs flush a wild and cagey bird from a web of brambles and spider-bound cocksfoot. Perhaps he saw the sun set in Bergen last night, and now he dabbles in Galloway mud.

The shape was up and away, and with him went the next spell of autumn.