A rare sight
“Look,” I shouted.
Mr T was driving from Shrewsbury on the A5. Wisely, he did
not look but kept his eyes on the road. I was staring at birds that were
behaving in an unusual way. It was a large
flock of lapwings wheeling overhead and I have never seen them like this. Also,
they are becoming very rare, especially in such large numbers as this flock
which was made up of about 500 birds.
Once many years ago I
heard the cry of a little bird on our drive. When I went to investigate, I saw
that it was a young lapwing. It could not have been many hours old. There would
probably have been three more chicks but, somehow, they got lost on the way. This
one still looked fluffy but was running on strong long legs. Its mother went on
ahead walking along into Oak Meadow. The chick followed and went were there are
plenty of creatures to eat. Sadly, now I never see lapwings here at home.
But this week I was lucky, not only did I see that flock of lapwings,
but I saw them going to roost. We stopped in a layby and watched. I could see
their blunt wings like paddles and their white undersides flashing in the low
sunlight. They flew away then back and round over the farmers’ fields making a
black streamer in the sky. Then one or two flew down into the middle of the
field next to us which was planted with swedes. Then other birds followed in
small groups whilst the rest circled overhead. Suddenly all the birds dropped
for their evening roost protected only by leaves. I could see the crest on the
heads of some until they crouched down amongst the crop and were almost
invisible.
My father once told me that he had seen a lapwing pretend to
be injured as it walked away from its nest. Its wing drooped and it limped. Dad
thought that it was trying to attract his attention away from the nest. He knew
where the nest was of course. He was a farmer and they know what is happening
in their fields. We saw lots of lapwings in those days they loved our rich clay
fields which were teeming with food for them.
Thinking of food, we are running out of vegetables in our
garden. We try to eat in season. We have eaten all our leeks but have a few
carrots left and a cabbage. However, we have parsnips in abundance. I do not
care for them very much, but parsnip soup flavoured with strong chilli peppers
is a good winter warmer.
(Taken from my column in the Shropshire Star)
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