Secret names follow the tide

Veckans fågelfredag vadar längs kanten av en skotsk "Loch" och följer tidvattnet vid Trents mynning. Vi gör det i sällskap med två pipare och en storspov. Vi börjar med en tofsvipa (Lapwing på engelska)  som försöker skydda sina ägg.

A deceit of lapwings (excerpt, 'utdrag'), by David Underdown
(From 2008 Anthology. Peterloo Poets.)

Consider the shame of that name
even as they roller-coast over open skies,
over the secrets of ploughed fields,
keening and whooping to draw the farmhand on
away from their own open secret
nestled in its dark furrow.
See how she drags her uninjured wing
luring him from her little ones
as the boy with his bag counts his eggs,
and hatches in his mind
the money that will nestle in his purse.

Yet all over the down lands the skies are still thick
with the rush of their crossing, the thrum of their passing.

I know them by their secret names,
peewit, pie-wipe, chewit, tuefit,
the language of eggers and washmen and netters,
toppyup, peasiewheep, teewhuppo, thievnick,
telling their stories to tillers and ploughmen,
plivver, ticks-nicket, thievnig, peeweet.

***

Och så campar vi på den skotska heden och följer en strandpipares (Ringed Plover på engelska) vippande vattensök.

Plover, by Kathleen Jamie (f. 1962)
(From The Literary Review, 2002.)

If, while pitching my tent 
   west of Lochan na h-Earba, 
   I'd trodden on the nest 
   of the ringed plover, 

   I'd have walked the moor 
   of brittle grass and tormentil 
   barefoot, in the summer hail 
   --distant from that 

   small bird tilting by the water, 
   who finds everything 
   she needs there--shingle
  for her four eggs; food, and company. 

***

Vi avslutar med ett besök vid flodmynningen, nära staden Hull, och en studie av storspoven (Curlew på engelska).

En Storspov i profil.

Curlew by the Humber, by David Wheatley (f. 1970)
(from Hide. Hull City Council, 2010.)

Hooped over turned earth
they stalk between tides,
unlooked for but found,
approaching, too close almost!

The stubble of worms
they take shaved clean
at the root, loose grass
on the breeze

and shifting
temporary islands somewhere
behind the high ditch
world enough for them –

held
in a gaze
they do not return
tracking their looped cries

upwards and peeling
away as one at last
that I might know what
I have seen.