The Hide

The Hide

The bricked path to the Hide leads under shady acacia trees,

alongside lush lawns, next to beds of colourful wild flowers;

I approach slowly, reverently almost,

Binoculars in one hand, iPad in the other,

My head covered by a New Balance running cap,

A Holiday gift from my colleagues.

All around are the strains of birdsong,

Nearby a kingfisher chants shrilly from his lofty dead branch;

Further off the water dikkops wail mournfully, quietly;

The bottlebird warbles from his bush down by the riverside,

Far off, high above the river, a pair of fish eagles call majestically to one another;

All the while the river flows, rumbles, rushes, washes, swirls, singing its own powerful song.

I slowly, unsteadily mount the creaking central wooden staircase ladder;

Uneven slanting steps cause me to lurch and sway and almost fall;

I grab the handrail and the whole Hide seems to rock.

The assembled watchers look round, frowning, disapproving.

I mumble an apology and tiptoe to a vacant place on the bare wooden benches.

The obvious regulars are quickly picked out – the brilliant red bishop, Egyptian geese,

Egrets, bulbuls, babblers, spur fowls, weavers, prinias, swallows, swifts …

No one is that interested in them and neither am I.

Ticked them all off long ago.

No, we are here to Wait and Watch.

Watch and Wait.

Watch for the Coming.

Wait for the Revelation.

Will it be today?

The minutes tick by.

The lowveld afternoon air hangs thick and heavy about us.

Birds come and go, but nothing new happens.

There is peace here, and quiet,

but it is an expectant peace, an excited quiet.

Something momentous may happen today.

Something new may be revealed.

Suddenly, a gasp.

Inaudible, but felt.

A Watcher has seen something.

We follow the direction of her binoculars to the reeds below.

Another gasp, a group gasp.

Someone says the words “cuckoo finch”.

We all reach frantically for our books or iPads and page or type furiously,

In-between drinking in the sight of this diminutive yellow-brown creature,

flitting around in the reeds below.

We envisage ticking it off, chalking it up – a lifer!

The old man in the corner is silent, calm, unfrenzied.

For a long while he just sits and observes.

Then he intones in a deep voice through his white beard:

“Weeeaaaavvvvverrrr…..”

A groan, felt but not heard.

We return to watching and waiting.

Perhaps this is not the day, not the hour.

We must remain faithful.

Revelation could happen at any time.

Devotions over, we make our peace and leave quietly,

Singly or in twos and threes.

Out into the hostile world of the unbirded,

Those lacking our magnificent obsession.

The stairs creak again under the load. The structure sways.

The last watcher leaves and the Hide lies empty, deserted,

Maintaining its own watch.

oooOOOooo