ECHO 22/4/06 - Italy

Watching a pair of Hoopoe in the garden - beautifully svelt creatures with long, gentle necks (remind me of deer if that’s possible in a bird); a crest and upper body of peachy ochre, black and white striped flanks, and a long down-turned bill for probing into the ground for food. They dance in the shadows. Then I plant myself in the shade of a tree at the eastern-most corner of the small vineyard and I wait and watch the dense foliage beyond for the Nightingale. He’s in there, learning new sounds - the more they sing the more phrases and variations they learn, they become better singers from one day to the next. Suddenly something takes flight - larger than a sparrow, more direct in its wing beats and with a pale breast and slightly russet back - it could be a Nightingale. But it moves so fast that I don’t get a chance to raise the binoculars before it is back in the tree line lower down the slopes and gone. I wait, puzzling over that brief glimpse. The song has ceased so it is possible that it was the bird. Heart beats. The afternoon heat; the chatter of sparrows; a buzzard soars on a thermal over the valley at Le Coste. Then the song from a different direction and very close. I move gently and as quietly as possible. Something takes wing again, something similar to before and very fast - a glimpse of a bird. He must have superpowers of perception, super-senses to taunt me and know that he would be gone without giving himself away for long. Secret. All too magical.