Hunting Cranes at Lakenheath Fen Copyright © Richard J Whiting 2011

The first crane we saw
Was a grey heron;
Masked, comic-book hero
Shallows stalker, fish-eyed,
Statue still.
The next a bittern
In rare flight
Head curled back
Like a lord
Being driven to the races
His pan-piping friends
Left to their secrets.
Between rattling trains
We watched Marsh Harriers sky-dance
Letting the earth race
To meet them
As they tumbled and fell
Into the arms of love.
Then, low over the reeds
A cuckoo, heavy with egg
Scouted for Warbler nests
As foster homes
In moments usually reserved
For the small-screen
During which all gatherings
Of breath were suspended.
In the old match-woods
The fleeting sight
Of a Golden Oriole
Gold, black, exotic
Fluting his enigmatic echoes
Across this jungle of Suffolk.
Night drops in veils;
Two barn owls quarter
The far fields
Each ghosting across the grasslands
Silent death
To voles and shrews,
Life for their nestlings
Destined for days like these
In the years to come.

Ah, but no cranes!
The car fills with memories
Of all we have seen;
The talk seeps through
The windows and out
Into the dark
Fenland night
Where, no doubt
The cranes dance and stalk
In secret celebration
At another successful
Undercover operation!
But then, the joy
Of all we have seen,
And the joy
Of what is yet to come.