Il pleure dans mon coeur

Never in the history of vertebratology, I’ll wager, has a yearlist begun so inauspiciously. For a week now, that’s a whole fifty-tooth of 2012, I have been confined to my house by a throbbing ear. A lesser white-fronted goose delicately nibbles the grazing marshes of the Yare Valley, amid elegant taiga beans. But have I seen them? Nope. A Coues' arctic redpoll daringly dangles from alders at Titchwell, picking at their seeds with its distinctively stubby beak. On my list? Nope. Countless thousands of knot and bar-tailed godwits swirl at the top of the tides in the Wash. And have I seen them? Nope.

Feeling sorry for myself? Perhaps a little.

The ear still throbs and in 2012 I have yet to see a dunnock. I have yet to see a great tit too, though in the inky light of dawn this morning a black and white cat trotted cheerfully through my garden carrying a dead bird, which I thought might be a great tit.

Yes, I’m attempting to identify ornitho-corpses in feline fangs. That it should come to this.

Plus it’s raining.

Il pleure dans mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville.