Just over the horizon from Sheffield lies a triangle of moorland trapped between three busy roads. There’s a venerable pub on one corner and on the opposite side a fast, straight road that isolates this 100‑acre pocket from the rest of Totley Moss. It doesn’t exactly seem a propitious location for moments that sear into your memory, but this triangle often surprises. I’ve seen small groups of red deer, apparently marooned; a short-eared owl sliding through the dusk in summer; and a curlew floating earthward just feet in front of me, burbling softly as it reached its nest.
Today’s encounter was full of tension. Cycling the mile-long straight, I glanced up to see a cuckoo racing ahead of two meadow pipits. The cuckoo had that phlegmatic expression of the rumbled conman. The pipits were furious and chasing hard, despite the almost laughable contrast in size, achieving a kind of purity in their rage, whereas there was something counterfeit about the cuckoo’s form – its head pigeon-like, except for the glaring yellow of the eyes, the chest barred like a sparrowhawk to put the frighteners on, the tail stretched improbably.
