Category:

The village expected the birdwatchers now every spring and autumn and though it complained of their presence every year in a gentle, pleasant way which had become a habit, it was happy to exploit them commercially. Few of the locals understood them, or made any effort to know them well. They sold books and food and pictures to the birdwatchers—birdwatchers staying in their homes extended the bed and breakfast season—but the intense enthusiasm, the fanaticism puzzled them.The village was red-stone, flint-faced, like many others along the coast, and its inhabitants wondered in a bewildered, accepting way why it should have been chosen for special attention by the birdwatchers. And yet, in spite of the detachment, the occasional hostility, there had been some impact on the local population. The excitement of twitching was infectious. That morning Ella, owner of the Windmill Cafe, glorious in black nightclothes, had looked out of the bedroom window, and exclaimed to her husband:

'Look at that wind and that fog, Jack. We'll be busy today. They'll be motoring in from all over the country.'

Her dark eyes had flashed at the drama of it all, and she thought of the profit which would be shown at the end of the day.

So, there was a strange feeling in the village, sensed by locals and birders alike. The thick fog which had rolled in from the sea at dawn would not clear. The cars moved slowly and people stopped and remarked on the weather, and remembered other times when the fog had lasted a week, and throughout the day odd young people in disreputable clothing, carrying telescopes like offensive weapons, rushed through the village to the marsh, or back from the marsh to the copse. Later, older and more respectable people arrived in cars, and politely asked their way. All day, shut in by the fog as the strangers arrived, there was a feeling that the village was under siege and under invasion.

It was late afternoon when Adam Anderson found the 'big one', the rarity for which they had all been waiting. Adam was still at school, one of the younger generation of twitchers, most of whom were still regarded with suspicion because of their wild claims and lack of respect for tradition and the order of things. But Adam was nervous, quiet. He was dedicated and spent more days in the field than he did at school. Because of his long hair, his jeans and Indian cotton shirt, the older twitchers, who had been his age in the sixties, felt at ease with him. Adam knew, as all birdwatchers of any experience in Rushy knew, that he must get his information to the Windmill.

The Windmill was a wooden hut on a piece of flat derelict grassland below the shingle bank, next to the coastguard station. It had been built by Ella and Jack when there had been talk of developing the area for the tourists, plans for a funfair and amusement arcade. Perhaps the developers had been dissuaded by the bleakness of the place, the talk of flooding, the pressure of the conservationists, because there was no more building. If tourists went to Rushy they seldom wandered out onto the marsh. So Jack had gone back to work, driving the school bus.

Before the arrival of the birdwatchers, Ella had sat alone in the hut, making an occasional cup of tea for fishermen and bait diggers. Now, as on most weekends in the migration season, the Windmill was packed. Most of the birders, hungry, dampened by the fog, had given up the dream of finding the big one, and were drinking tea, sharing information, waiting for the phone to ring with news from other parts of the country. Ella, who had been growing middle-aged, grey, with the failure of the business, had been rejuvenated by the twitchers, and expressed her gratitude by promoting their image in the village. She was a big, handsome woman, whose grandfather was said to have come to Rushy as a tinker. She had adopted the twitchers' code as her own, once banning for a season a bird- watcher who had kept news of a rarity to himself. She mothered them and spoiled them and made a lot of money out of them. On a day like this she felt the birdwatchers' depression personally. They seemed to have brought the fog with them into the building. The windows were misted with it, and there was a smell of damp. Every class of birdwatcher was represented, and although the hierarchy within an ornithological society would not be noticed by an outsider, it was recognized by Ella. Until Ella knew his name, where he lived and what work he did, a twitcher did not properly belong.

The person who most obviously belonged in the place was a young man, scruffily but carefully dressed in a sailing smock and worn cord trousers. He stood behind the counter, in the kitchen, and lazily helped himself to a cup of tea. He had a stubble of beard and began to roll a cigarette, in a calculating, self-conscious way. He was always showing off. He seemed to be cultivating the image of a South American revolutionary. From a corner, loud but nervous teenagers watched him with envy. One of the teenagers, who wore an earring and dyed orange hair, made a teasing comment which was obviously uncomplimentary to the man pouring the tea, but he made it as a gesture of defiance, and there was little laughter from his friends.

An elderly couple, the man dressed immaculately like a country gentleman, the woman in a tweed skirt and wellingtons, pushed open the door of the cafe and stood just inside. Ella was busy and had her back to them. The young revolutionary smiled broadly, but the gentleman put his finger to his lips and winked at Ella's back. When she turned round he was standing behind the counter beside her, eating a piece of her fruit cake. There was a real pleasure in her surprise, and when he took her hand she blushed before she sent them both to the customers' side of the counter, saying that they were in her way.

'Now, now, my dear,' said the country gentleman. 'That's surely no way to talk to the oldest twitcher in Rushy.'

'Mr Palmer-Jones,' replied Ella with great spirit. 'I shall talk to you how I please and how you deserve.'

Then, affectionate and angry, she turned on the young man:

'If I catch you behind here again, Robert, with that filthy tobacco, I'll ban you for a month.'

Unrepentant, the young man refilled his cup and led his friends to a table to sit down. As he stood to let them past him, he noticed that the sun was shining.