SNIPE SNIPED...

 Snipe Sniped…

Silently, narrow wooden shutters were levered down

For the sniper’s inquisitive lens to shoot

Wildlife or the sunlit common reeds, newly grown,

Or a tufted duck, a moorhen, or perhaps a coot…

Motionless, the sniper surveyed Brandon Marsh

For any evidence of divers to be captured;

Then in nearby green reeds, dark and harsh

Jittered several snipe, whose ablutions enraptured…

The silent dark shed, the lakeside hide

Looked down upon the snipe in camouflage;

The lens shot images of the birds’ crude hide,

Seeming at first like a lakeside mirage…

Pete Ray

5th February 2022…

   I was sniping with a camera and my attention was alerted to some short dark reeds in the shallows at Brandon Marsh.

Several snipe were preening with their long beaks, barely noticeable at first because of the reeds in which they stood. 

One nibbled at some plant or other from under the water but in general the birds were content to clean themselves, remarkably well camouflaged…