A woodpigeon stands in the lane staring into the hedge. She waits until the very last second before her attention is broken by approaching danger and her instincts hurl her into the air.
The squab she was watching over is now alone in the grass. With feathers hardening from fluff but still incapable of flight, the chick remains still, as if that will make it invisible.
It is hard to imagine anything more vulnerable. The next passing dog, cat, stoat, weasel, buzzard, raven will be hard pressed to stifle the impulse to kill and eat it, and why should it? This life is a gift to the hungry. And a step into the lane will bring the squab under the wheels of the next passing vehicle.
How the woodpigeon chick got there from the comparative safety of its nest in an ash tree above and how the parent bird can keep it safe long enough for it to fly independently is unclear. Its deep, dark, eye may not know the jeopardy it sees.
From an evolutionary fluid state between something reptilian and something avian, this scratty bundle feigning invisibility generates an anxiety that permeates a bright autumn morning. Under a high blue sky with clouds like slow-flying geese, the lime trees spin gold. A southerly sings through the wood’s crest and every berry bears a teardrop of rain.
This has been a particularly beautiful autumn, but there are other oddly anxious signs afoot. Beside the wood is an arrangement of limestone cobbles, picked from the adjoining field. The stones have been placed carefully over badger latrines to conceal them.
Is this because someone wants to deter badgers from using these territorial boundary markers, or to mark their presence for a cull. Perhaps conceal their presence from those intent on killing them? This badger territory may be a long way from the nearest field of cattle but illegal culling is nothing new here.
This landscape may be beautiful but it is not safe, not brutal so much as passionately indifferent. Sometimes survival rests on luck and invisibility.
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