Hide

by Mike Hickman

He is not here for the rosebay or the willowherb. He does not acknowledge the view as he sits and he faces away from the water and the birds. It’s a full minute before his eyes lift from his lap and find mine.

“Nice day for it,” I tell him, because it seems he needs the reminder.

He’s not a birder, but he wouldn’t be the first non-birder to venture in here of a summer Sunday. It’s a public hide and anyone who comes down to the reserve can come in, take a few moments, learn to appreciate the beauty of nature.

The guy continues to face away from all of it. Behind him, the caw, scrape and screech of so many birds. Coots, moorhens, oyster catchers. Cackling gaggles of aggravated geese. Enough, you might think, to attract the attention of even the most jaded individual.

Not this guy.

“Hot out there,” I tell him, placing my binoculars on the bench and regretting the move because he looks at me and somewhere in the sun-blasted eyes is an irritation that I have broken off from the accepted behaviour of leaving complete strangers alone.

I feel a little self-conscious under the gaze, but we’re dressed so differently. Me, as ever, for the weather. Him in suit, shirt and tie.

“Needed a break,” he tells me, after a moment spent examining the wall behind my head.

I turn and see the whiteboard and think perhaps he’s been studying that. Sometimes they do, the people who come in here. Sometimes, it’s about the score. Only three ringed plovers today. Precious few bar-tailed godwits (but I could tell him how precious those sightings are in these parts). Perhaps he’s driving to or from some work event that requires him to be out on a Sunday. Perhaps he really is a birder, and he’s come in here to grab a moment or two, even though there won’t be time for any decent twitching.

Because this is a spot for twitching, for rare birds, and people do come from miles around just on the off chance.

That could be his story.

He’s not been reading the whiteboard. When I turn back, he has his phone out and he’s scrolling through messages and he’s shaking his head and those eyes of his are blinking.

“If you’ve not got any binoculars, I can lend you a pair,” I say. There is a burst of activity behind him as the curlews and whimbrels I’d been watching determine they’ve had enough of the goosanders and scatter themselves across to the other end of their bank.

“No, ta.” The guy says, sounding like an eight year old. He seems to hear himself, even over the sounds of the birds re-establishing their dominance behind. “No, thank you,” he says.

There are no birds to be seen in the pictures on his phone. I can’t help it – the light is so low in the hide, when you’re back in the shadows, that any light brought in immediately catches the eye. I see what appear to be family photos. This guy and his wife, perhaps. This guy, his wife and a daughter. Both mother and daughter with the brightest auburn curls. I imagine them as a bit of a handful. Full of life. A TV advertiser’s dream of a family, if I could imagine such a thing anymore. He feels me watching him. The phone display is banished.

“Just need a break,” he tells me again.

“Well, I can’t think of a better place,” I say. For some reason, I’m wanting to offer him a sarnie. I’m thinking perhaps he could do with a pork pie or a spot of tea. He’s got that abandoned thing to him you sometimes get with married men of this kind. Wife and daughter have obviously gone off for a walk somewhere, left him to his own devices, and he’s found the hide. Or he’s taking a moment, so he can go back to being the full-on family man when they catch up with him.

I wish I could tell him of the benefits of birding.

There’s the whistle of an incoming text notification. His hand comes down quickly onto the phone and he’s holding it close as he checks it. His office shoe clad feet scuff the iron rich soil.

He’s going to say something, and I’m preparing myself to wish him a good day as he goes back out there to do the thing he has to do. Become Dad again. Swing that kid onto his shoulders and go charging through the reeds until they’re back at the car and heading for their three-up, two-down suburban home.

I could tell him how I discovered the benefits of birding.

But there isn’t any time. The in-door to the hide bangs open, precisely as no one with any interest in the birds would open it, and a brassy, sunburned woman with blonde hair and Creole earrings comes in, bringing with her quite the waft of Daisy by Marc Jacobs.

My friend stands up immediately, the phone pocketed, the maudlin air dispensed with. The shovelers make their presence known from outside. Perhaps they’ve picked up on the perfume.

“Laura!” says the man. “There you are!”

I return to my view as he embraces her. I refocus my binoculars as they kiss. I wait for the silence after the door slams behind them.

I could have told him how I picked up this hobby, I think again, spotting a common ringed plover I hadn’t sighted before and moving to increase the tally on the whiteboard.

I could have told him the benefits, I think again, as I return to the bench and the ill-made sarnie.

But, like so many of the birds out there on the banks of the reserve – finding their way back here year after year across such distances – he’ll know.

Sometimes Doctor, always writer, Mike Hickman (@MikeHicWriter) is from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including a 2018 play about Groucho Marx and Erin Fleming. Since 2020 he has been published in Agapanthus (Best of the Net nominated), EllipsisZine, the Bitchin’ Kitsch, the Cabinet of Heed, Sledgehammer, and Red Fez.