The counters arrive two hours ahead of high water and set out their folding chairs on the sea wall, like people preparing for a particularly slow and beautiful sport.
Conditions on the day
Cold start, ground hard, a thin mist hanging in the lower field until about nine. Coffee from the flask tasted vaguely of last week's soup. Walked the usual line along the hedge, slowly, stopping at each of the marker posts, and writing down everything whether it seemed important or not.
You do not count every bird. You count ten, then you count tens.
Sightings
The notebook is the whole point. A single sighting means almost nothing; forty years of them, kept by someone who cared enough to get up early, are an irreplaceable record. Scientists increasingly rely upon these journals, which have long been gathering dust in county archives and in spare bedrooms.
Notes for next time
Things seem to be happening earlier. The blackthorn flowered a full two weeks ahead of my father's records for this same hedge. It is only one hedge, and it would be foolish to make too much of that, but the pattern is repeated on enough pages to make me pause.
For next time: a better pencil, a drier sandwich, and a look at the far pond, which I keep meaning to check and keep not checking. The light was gone by four. Home by half past, boots by the door, and all the numbers copied up in pen before supper.
