How long will we have to wait?

We line the cliff top path.

Below, the breakers resonate   

and jubilant kittiwakes laugh.

We question one of the volunteer staff, 

“How long will we have to wait?”

“How long will you have to wait?”

She smiles and makes it clear:

yesterday it was ten to eight,

Thursday, not here -

or so they think - it didn’t appear!

“How long ca...

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I

Sixty tonne of metal bellowing down the sky

assails the quietude

of reeds and muddy pools

where spoonbills sift through sludge and seagulls drift nearby.

The mouth of the Ria Formosa’s a birders’ paradise:

miles of salt pans hosting

birds of low-lying coastline,

in thousands upon thousands. It’s Eden beyond price

in every way but one: the fence of Faro A...

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I set off on a ramble through the Forest of Bowland

binoculars at the ready, a bird book to hand.

I hope to see some species that don't breed in the lowlands,

hen harriers and short eared owls, quartering the land.  

My list has pipits, crows and jackdaws,

grouse in surplus but no raptors.

I tick off golden plover, curlew and wheatear

but where are the skydancers? 

THEY'RE ...

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