Cycle Snipe by Kathryn Blythe

Cycle Snipe 

Entwined with the wind is the sound of the snipe. I have heard it louder, but today it is on the edge of the soundscape, caught up in the wind like a piece of sound flotsam. I am out cycling and have stopped just to let the sounds sink in. Sometimes when I cycle out to the beach all I hear is the wind in my ears. I turn to come home and suddenly the wind is gone, and there are curlew, oystercatchers, red grouse, and today the snipe. 

I often cycle during the spring and summer, setting off when night is not quite day. A thin navy blue surrounds me as I pedal softly away from the house: a hill, three roads, and then open fields. Immediately the sounds of any early robins, wrens and blackbirds in back gardens are replaced by the birds of this open grassland. Some days a short-eared owl will pass me, or I it, as it sits on a fence post. In spring a cuckoo calls out across the moor. 

My destination is a short track, packed with flowers in the summer months, which leads me to the beach. I slow down, take in the tide and the perfect sand and breathe in this fresh and wild view.  

My stay is just moments long, I have a day to start, but this other world stays all day within my peripheral vision.

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