R and I went to Slimbridge this morning, to collect the Boy Wonder and bring him home for a couple of days:
“How many nights?”
“Two.”
“So I’m not going home tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Good!”
I like to celebrate these little exchanges when they happen, because inevitably there will come a day when going to see the grandparents will be regarded as the most appalling imposition, and the idea of spending two nights away from all the important stuff he has to do at home will be almost insupportable. Happily, today was not that day.
After the handover, L went off back to all the important stuff she had to do at home, and the Boy, R and I went and joined an entry queue that stretched half way back down the access ramp. In all the years I’ve been going to Slimbridge I’ve never seen anything like it – but it was nearly the end of the school holidays, and an unseasonably glorious day, so I suppose it’s really not surprising that it was busy. As soon as we’d been booked in at reception we headed for the café in search of lunch, and to our great surprise found it almost empty. Where had all those people got to? we wondered – and when we eventually made it to Welly Boot Land we found out: it was rammed. At this point the Boy – almost as big as fan of not being jostled around by a crowd of people as R and me – decided that he’d rather do something else, so we concentrated on some of the games in his Easter holiday activity pack, and left Welly Boot Land to the sociable.
Towards the end of the visit we popped back into the café for drinks, and I took advantage of the fact that R and B were happily chatting about something or other and scuttled over to the Rushy hide, in search of a photographable bird. When I rejoined them five minutes later, R looked up in surprise and said, “It’s OK – we’re fine. Go off and do your thing.” “Done it,” I said smugly. “There was an Oystercatcher worming right outside the hide window.” “Gosh,” said R, who well knows the extent to which I can lose track of time in a hide. What he didn’t know was how many photos I’d taken on high-speed burst in those five minutes – and what I knew (sadly) was how long it was going to take me to process and cull them all.
I wish I could bring you the sound effect that accompanied this moment – a furious squawk that I can only think was the Oystercatcher equivalent of a weightlifter’s roar, as the bird finally managed to shift the stone it had been trying to turn over. I found myself thinking that I’ve seen Turnstones – around a quarter the size of an Oystercatcher – moving stones around that were proportionately at least the equivalent of this, without making any fuss about it at all. But the Turnstone is generally a pretty low-key bird (I especially like the rusty door noise it makes, as posted by the RSPB), while the much flashier Oystercatcher always gives the impression of loving the sound of its own voice.
R: L2, C7, D20.
