Our sense of unease arose slowly. Initially it was inspired by nothing more than the maze of rat runs through the lank grass – a warren of paths spreading outwards in all directions. Who could have made these, was our first question. It might have been rabbits, but every step was marked by a slug-like dark squidge streaked with urea: bird excrement.
Suddenly, here was the source, and instinctively your eye was drawn to the distilled beauty of a camouflaged plumage. Except that any aesthetic sense was at odds with the weirdness of the birds’ behaviour. Pheasants – dozens, scores, hundreds eventually – careered off, but not in a single line driven by instinct. They ran in loops as if they had no idea whether they should come towards us as domesticated stock, or run away as wild animals.
