Morningrise

Six am in the middle of nowhere. Agricultural land - fields, vineyards, hedgerows, copses - stretches to the sunrise. A farmer waves with a cheery 'bonjour', but others eye me strangely. It is just us, me, and the birds: wails of stone curlews float across the land, hiding nightingales bash out their boisterous tune, golden orioles sing their lolloping liquid song from silver and mint-green poplars, tiny cisticolas plink incessantly like attention-seeking children, a white cattle egret in a field of gulls... And I'm tired, I've walked for miles, and then a hundred flamingos appear over my shoulder as if a flock of geese on an October afternoon, yet pink, alien, bewildering, unforgettable. Then I get lost.