It’s the most harmless of questions. Or so you’d think.
‘Seen anything interesting?’
I’ve clocked him a mile off. It’s a long path leading from the sea wall back to the car park, and his silhouette has gradually taken human form over the last five minutes. I’d hoped it would be a pleasantly solitary trudge. Fields to the left, freshwater lagoons to the right, my only company a couple of kestrels, a coot or six and a charm of goldfinches moving from tree to tree with bounce in their flight and voices.
He’s a birder. It’s a strange tribe, one to which I almost but not quite belong. I go out birding, and it has at times in the last eighteen months developed into something of an obsession, but it remains a fortnightly activity rather than, as for many, a daily one, the main hindrance my allergy to early mornings.
I’m aware that even using the words ‘allergy to early mornings’ basically disqualifies me from true membership of the tribe.
‘Seen anything interesting?’ and its common variant ‘Anything about?’ are the traditional opening gambits of the birder.
My options are various.
‘Define ‘interesting’.’
‘Look! Look! Over there! Damn, you’ve missed it.’
‘Anything interesting? But…but…it’s ALL interesting. Isn’t that why we’re here?’
‘There’s a bloke back there with a traffic cone on his head. Does that count?’
‘A few things, but nothing compared to your shirt. What were you thinking?’
‘Ah, well now you’re asking, my friend. Now you are asking. I’ve seen the first smile on the face of a newborn child, the internal workings of a Wankel rotary engine, the miracle of the summer sun on a pretty girl’s upturned face. I’ve seen Jimmy Anderson control a cricket ball as if it were on a string, and the Berlin Philharmonic hold an audience of two thousand in spellbound silence, which two things are, if you think about it, sides of the same coin. I’ve seen what happens when you deprive humans of their rights and dignity. I’ve seen a football team concede three goals in the first twenty minutes, then claw themselves back into the game fuelled only by the collective and unquenchable desire not to lose. I once chartered a boat with friends and went out into the English Channel to see a solar eclipse. The effect of top spin on a ping pong ball; the haphazard geometry of a pile of books; sand behaving like a liquid when you pump air through it; Jack Nicholson’s face; morning frost on a pristine lawn; the rise of the people and the collapse of nations; Tiger Woods’ miracle shot on the sixteenth at Augusta that time; a seven-year-old child solving a Rubik’s cube in ten seconds; Portland lighthouse rising from the fog as if suspended in midair; the mass mourning of Princess Diana; the tears of joy in the eyes of a woman when, after a life of deafness, she hears for the very first time; Rembrandt’s self-portraits; golden syrup being poured into a bowl; the behaviour of people at bus stops; the languid majesty of David Gower; the miraculous effect of a word of kindness towards a stranger in distress; The Princess Bride; the Cruyff turn; a dog on a skateboard; a really good dry stone wall; the look of amazement on Kelly Holmes’ face when she won her first gold medal and the utter certainty in her whole being when she won her second; a lone butterfly striking out to sea against a deep blue autumn sky; the look in Paul Newman’s eyes in that scene in The Sting; an amplifier that goes up to eleven; the fractal geometry of Romanesco broccoli; Freddie Flintoff wheeling away from his teammates to comfort Brett Lee; the everyday miracle of oh wait hang on you just meant have I seen any interesting birds today, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, right. No, nothing, I’m afraid. Sorry.’
One day I might just do it.
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