My own private spring-watch

Stopped for a while during today's invigorating, sunlit bike-ride to watch some birds above a bare field under a cloudless sky. There was just one at first, a lapwing, with that distinctive squarish wing shape, the black and white underwing catching the sunlight with each up-flap. Then another one appeared, and the first one started doing an amazing display flight: steep, bent-winged dives, pulling up just before he hit the ground, skimming across the field inches above the bare earth, then climbing again to do a leisurely circuit before he repeated the dive-bombing manoeuvre. And all the time, he's emitting the weirdest sounds: little electronic-sounding tweets and whoops, almost R2-D2esque, or like the noises that come out of a badly-tuned shortwave radio.

A nature first for me.

How lovely to have a bit of the world re-enchanted right in front of your eyes.