HIDE & SEEK: a game played between a badger & a magpie at Temple Balsall, 2nd July 2023...

 Hide & Seek…

(The magpie & the badger…)

The magpie perched. Raucous. ‘Coming, ready or not’ it screamed.

It was ‘on’.

Its counting was a series of football rattles, 

Filtering through the breezy copse, whose leaves like flags wagged.

And the game began…

The badger sidled round the circumference 

Of a stout tree trunk of rigid permanence,

Anxious, its visage pale and wan,

Its hesitancy palpable, as claws silently dragged,

Fearful of the seeking magpie’s ominous cackles

Sudden, then gone.

The badger soon vanished, disturbed, it seemed…

Pete Ray

3rd July 2023…

Temple Balsall, 2nd July 2023.

A magpie screamed on a tree branch as a badger emerged from its sett and was clearly concerned by the noise made by the scavenger.

The badger seemed to hide behind the tree, as if in a game of hide and seek, as the magpie squawked, “Coming, ready or not…”