The Hoopoo

The April rain has blown in and with it a Hoopoe. Every afternoon he sweeps down from his nest high in the trees in Trevor’s field and into the garden, a flash of black, white and orange-fawn against a prairie of pearl-grey sky.

He seems to like the wet grass, the daisies, dandelions and molehills. He paces jerkily, methodically, across them, at times almost tripping over his long, dark bill, like a short land surveyor trying to wield an unyielding levelling rod.

Fuzzy like a tawny bullrush, the Hoopoe’s strong neck powers his bill into the grass and into the ground in his stabbing, pulsing hunt for insects.

The force make his whole, small body shake – almost lifts him from his feet. He quakes like a workman breaking into road surface with a pneumatic drill.

The sun comes out. The Hoopoe tilts his head towards its warmth, basks in the attention of his limited audience of two starlings, a faded robin and a blackbird – and a human.

He spreads out his broad, round wings, drawing them around him like an Aztec cloak. His head-dress, his black-tipped crown of pale carrot-coloured feathers, rolls forward.

Then he twists his body up, fluttering his wings like a giant butterfly, and traces a spiralling flightpath into the sky.