Birds

The five friends started out, Gary and Terry carrying the long, wooden rods over their shoulders. They passed over the friendy farmers house-shaded, dew dampened grounds to the musical accompaniment of a bird evidently very close.

Paulo watched Susan tilt her head, focusing her hearing on the varied flutes and trills of a song thrush, the complex melodies arriving in bursts from a nearby birch tree.

‘Morning Herald.’ Susan jolted, as if realising she’d said it out loud. Then she appeared nonchalant.

She stepped forward with a bounce in her stride to watch the speckle-breasted bird lifting his beak to sing.

‘Did you just say, Herald!’ jibed Paulo. ‘You did!’ he laughed. ‘Herald! Herald the song thrush! Crazy, mad biologist!’

Susan shoved Paulo’s arm. ‘You know your birds, Mr Aziz!’

‘I do know my bird’s, Dr Andres.’ Pretty woman. Fit…

Quirky but damn shapely. Needs the piss taking out of her, he thought. Paulo’s parents had kept their garden full of nature, and he’d absorbed it all somehow.

Making tracks along the south-western edge of the forest, the group passed trees reaching into the meadows. Susan pointed out elm and ash dotting the fields towards the river.

‘Still busy claiming territory,’ she said of the birds as their sweet sounds punctuated the quiet and stillness. Song accompanied by the occasional grunting and munching of horses.

Walking at a meandering pace down the hill, Susan smiled. ‘That sun’s nice.’

Paulo felt the sun gently warming his back. He looked down at the remnants of dew, dampening their legs. Proximity to such abundant nature was a fresh experience for the city dwellers and Susan would be enhancing it all for them.

Susan bounced on her heels as she walked past hedgerows and tree branches, spotting ‘passerine birds.’ The pretty little creatures hopping and flitting about their day, continually on the lookout for predators. Hopping and flitting like Susan, Paulo grinned.

One by one, the group passed through a gap in the hedgerows. Susan eyed some little brown-black speckled birds keeping a distance and keeping busy. One bird perched by some bright-red hawthorn berries cleaned its elegant, sword - like beak on a branch.

‘Hedge Sparrow.’

‘Hedge, check, Sparrow, check,’ Paulo said, watching Susan’s eyes absorbed in the surroundings.

Passing by a silver birch, Susan paused to watch some yellow and blue birds. The little creatures looked like masked bandits with their dark-blue eye-strips.

She focused on one of the tiny acrobats hanging upside down on the outer branches. It bit at a long dangling catkin. The sharp little beak of another bird grasped a limp caterpillar.

‘Blue Tit’s’

Paulo glanced down at Susan. ‘Tits… check.’

‘You’re a tit!’ she shoved him as he laughed.

Susan glanced ahead. ‘The others have made ground,’ she looked at him, ‘Let’s go.’

The pair made long strides, catching up with the others.

Slightly angling away from the forest, the group passed a beech tree, a pair of red squirrels deftly running along its branches. The mercurial creatures, their tails twitching, ducked behind the large trunk, out of sight of the humans.

The group arrived at the bottom of the sloping ground and stood above an elbow in the river that continued south-east on its winding course. Willow trees lined the banks. Tall grasses, reeds and rushes, grew at the edges. The group stared at the water, mesmerised by ‘The joyful shimmer.’

A blue bird with a rusty underside, took flight.

‘Common Kingfisher, look,’ pointed Susan.

It landed on a tree, the other side of the river.

The friends dried off and immediately organised fishing lines and flies.

Terry and Gary coached Paulo and Simone while Susan looked on, lounging on a rug resting on the dry, flat ground under a tree.

~~~

Gary demonstrated how to position the rod while holding the feather fly. He released it and skilfully lifted the rod back, whipping the line to cast it into the water. After reeling in. ‘Over to you Sim.’

Gary placed the rod in Simone’s hands with a smirk. He thinks I can’t do this, she thought. As their hands touched,nice, Simone felt a zing of connection. She blinked her eyes at him, couldn’t seem to help herself. Such a fine-looking, square jawed man.

Glancing at the rod in her hands, casting did not look easy.

Terry passed his rod to Paulo. ‘Like the man said.’

‘Firm grip, firm wrist,’ said Gary.

Rods in hand, Simone and Paulo glanced at one another and nodded. They lifted the rods back in unison, hooks following lines, flying through the air. Simone’s hit a tree, and her on-lookers viewed the hook and line gaining momentum, wrapping around and around the branch.

Paulo said, ‘Great.’ As he managed to hook the ground behind him.

Simone glanced back at Susan, lounging on the woollen rug laughing.

‘Hey, I’m giving it a go!’ She mockingly grit her teeth, only to turn back and see Terry and Gary laughing, shaking their heads.

The novices gave it another go. Paulo carefully positioning his hands on the rod just as Gary did, spreading his feet.Betting on self-belief, thought Simone.

Casting the rod back, Paulo’s line flicked out optimistically, yet dropped into a mess. ‘Argh!’ Paulo let out and passed the rod to Terry who nodded at Paulo, taking control.

‘Me too!’ Simone’s head drooped as she passed her rod back to Gary.

Paulo and Simone joined Susan on the rug where the three watched the teachers. They observed the elegance and deftness of Gary and Terry lifting the rods back left, causing the lines to apparently, calmly fly through the air in a relaxed sigmoid shape. Up and forward, the lines were thrown and successfully cast. The appreciative audience applauded.

~~~

Paulo lounged back on one arm and watched the wildlife.

Flapping its wings, the kingfisher hovered a few metres above the river. It pointed its scissor like beak downwards and dived, cutting through the water like a dart. The bird emerged, head lifted skyward, a fish in its beak. It flew up and landed back onto its willow branch, its prey wriggling. Briskly the kingfisher nodded left and right, whacking the fish on the branch, making it easier to swallow.

Paulo encouraged the fishing lines, ‘Come on, our turn.’

Ghostly white, even the wading egret across the river stabbed its beak into the water and retrieved a fish.