enter the Becassine …

Three in the morning. Woken by rumpus under the bed. Half involves the cat who is stout and generally walks quietly and with care. The other half is giving as good as it gets but is something unguessable. Clearly not a vole, a mouse, a rat, none of the usual suspects. Light on, cat backs off, thing buzzes up to the top of the bookcase and perches. A bird, but unlike any the cat s brought in before. Elegant like a line drawing, cantilevered on high angled legs, sweet curve of body rhymed with long long tapering bill. For want of a better idea it was stowed for safety with the canary. Here it is the morning after . .. a Snipe, a Becassine. A bird from a mediaeval tapestry. We walked it down to the brook at the bottom of the road and released it with a prayer that the Sunday hunters won t have it. The thought occurs that our room, open to the garden, is filled every night by a Noah’s ark of local animals that mill around amicably till dawn when they go their separate ways. The Becassine’s bad luck that it met the cat on the way out.