The call beyond the hedge

An original fictional scene about an invented birdwatching walk.

The path ended at a hedge, though the field beyond it was wide open. We had been told to listen before we looked. I thought this was an unnecessarily grand instruction for standing beside a muddy track with our binoculars pointing at nothing.

Mara raised one finger. A thin, repeated note came from somewhere beyond the leaves. “A reed warbler,” she whispered. I could not see a reed, or a warbler, and said the sound was probably a squeaky gate. Mara lowered her binoculars and listened again instead of arguing.

We moved a few steps along the hedge. The note stopped. I was pleased to have made my point, until three quick whistles answered from farther along the field. Mara smiled. “It might be a pair calling to one another.” I said that was a generous interpretation of three whistles.

For a while we heard nothing. My arms began to ache from holding the binoculars up. Then a small brown bird rose above the hedge, dipped, and vanished into the grass. I had seen it, but not well enough to name it. Mara had not lifted her binoculars at all. She was still looking towards the place where the first note had come from.

A moment later, the thin call sounded again. This time I did not reach for the binoculars. I waited. The three quick whistles followed, then a brief answering note from the hedge behind us. Mara looked at me without speaking. I did not tell her she was right; I was not sure she was. But the squeaky gate seemed less likely than it had a few minutes ago, and we stayed to listen.