Visitations

With the Sand Martin colony close to Portinscale - twenty plus birds cruising the warm damp air, plummeting and closing in on their nest holes in the river bank - these chattering, high-speed migrants have only arrived in the last twenty four hours or so (certainly they were not here the day before yesterday when we passed through on our walk toward How) - they are great little birds, I adore them; managing that trek all the way from Africa to here where many of them have nested before - they rove about us as we sit on the opposite bank following them in and out of the nests, some in pairs, some singly - stuttering wing-beats and almost bat-like appearance in flight - that close to them, a mere stretch of running water between us, can only make us feel we are 'with' them, watching every move - almost a soap opera of relocation and burgeoning family survival - we want them to succeed, all of them, hoping nothing bad will befall them -

Portinscale
11/5/06