Liz Aiken
The watcher returns. Standing safe. Spying out to sea. Binoculars raised to eyes that arch across the reed beds. This safe, flat dry land. The low grey menacing sky. The day promises cruelty like a three day-old bruise. The vivid purples and blues have started to fade now tinged with dirty yellows and dank greens. The wind whipping in from the Atlantic and up the estuary push the clouds across the skies. The rising tide slaps with a crack as seawater hits concrete barriers then falls back, pulling with it the debris of silt, gravel and discarded fast food boxes. The clouds shape the reflections. You stare and imagine the dragon of myth, now reshaped into a mouse. Then a sudden change, a flash of light. The sullen mood is weakened by the rays of sunshine cutting through the cloud line. Vision is clearer. Grey transitions into the palest baby blue. The effect is powerful. The colours of the land and sea sharpen, revealing the possibilities held within the day. The whine of the wind replaced by the songs and calls of birds, this land is their haven.
The spy raises the binoculars every day to watch. The routine unchanging - the observation, noting and digitally recording.
The list grows. The list turns a hobby into an obsession.
Watching from land stolen from the sea. Capturing the memories of seeing this land again. The scent of salt, weed and reeds, hearing wild calls now the curlews cry cur-lee frightened now a rapid tremolo. Joined by a tremulous chorus as sandpipers, turnstones, redshanks and the explosive Cetti’s warbler add to the soundscape. The tapestry of wings scatter in alarm then fly high above the sea wall.
Binoculars raised to watch with the background of their mournful high pitched calls. Then calm as the birds return and settle on the shore of sea-stolen land. No threat this time. The shelducks calmly waddle.
Binoculars observe the birds safe to sleep, eat, preen and mate. Turning towards land the reeds sway and the water sheds the taste of salt. Here the bitterns boom, peewits call, water rails skulk and stank hens lurk.
All seen by raised binoculars, now turned skywards the swallows swoop and swirl ready to depart. Soon the sounds of summer will fade and the blues will take on the shades of greys and mists drape and hide the sea from the land.
All the names recorded, every call heard and feather spied contented with the list yet strange no raptor has flow this way. For one last time today the binoculars scan the levels. From sea to sky and across the reens.
Danger spied a raptor to be noted as the hobbyist sees a hobby soar. The swallows fly with an elegant waltz across the land. Too late this haven now shattered. As the hobby flies playing out the killer’s dance. Birds scatter, whirling, wheeling pulled into the air above sea no land can steal. The swallows journey ends above the sea-stolen lands of Gwent as the hungry bird swoops with sharpened talons.