She left the kitchen, knowing further persuasion to be pointless. George had frightened Dennis so much that the chef had threatened Terry. She was worried that George would blame himself, that the old depression would return. But when she found him he hardly seemed to listen to what she had to say. Ella had phoned him. There was a penduline tit at Scardrift Flat, near Scarsea. He had packed and wanted to leave immediately.

Chapter Six

Everyone of any consequence was at Scardrift that afternoon. Every section of birdwatching society was represented. There were ringers, staying at the observatory, who affected to ignore the chaos and walked round the traps as usual, returning to the hut with a handful of bird bags. They appeared to show as much interest in the common birds they had caught, conscientiously ageing and sexing them, then attaching the dainty metal ring to one leg, as the twitchers outside did in the penduline tit. They tried to ignore Tina, who watched them, giving the occasional blunt word of advice. She wore denim shorts and a skimpy, washed-out, sleeveless shirt. It was plain that she wore nothing else.

There were the unemployed, full-time twitchers who had hitched north up the motorways. They stood with dirty, studied nonchalance and discussed their winter’s work at the oil terminal at Sullom Voe on Shetland or a proposed trip to Thailand.

Two respectable twitchers in their thirties, who had arrived in a smart company car, left their wives and children with a picnic on the beach and began to circulate among the crowd. As members of the British Birds Rarity Committee, they took the final decision about whether a bird was what it had been claimed to be. They were recognized, asked endless questions about records submitted and rejected.

Locals, beginners, looked with envy and excitement at the expensive binoculars and telescopes, listened to the talk of birding exploits, understanding only half the jargon, as strangers talked of “stringers,” “dipping out,” being “gripped off.” They pointed out to each other the well-known birdwatchers, whose names they had read in British Birds.

So there were twitchers and dudes, RSPB members and photographers, children and old men who had been twitchers before anyone knew what that word meant.

In the centre of the crowd Rob Earl and Pete Littleton were being loud, silly, telling obscene jokes about Vera, the notorious lady twitcher who hunted birds and men with the same determination. They had spent three hours at lunchtime in the pub at Scarsea. Adam Anderson sat apart from them and carefully, shyly cleaned the lenses of his binoculars.

Of the hundreds of people there, only six had seen the bird. It had been caught by a keen schoolboy staying at the observatory, who had done a trap round at dawn. It had been shown to observatory members, ringed and released. The warden had wanted to keep news of the bird secret. He resented the invasion, the noise, the lack of privacy which always followed the discovery of a rarity. Scardrift was his place and these outsiders did not appreciate it. But the schoolboy was on the grapevine. Every weekend he phoned a person whom he had never met, who lived in Manchester, to find out “what was about.” If there was anything good within cycling or public transport distance he would go to see it. He could not resist the temptation to give information rather than to receive it. He could not resist the glory. The warden would never know how the news had escaped. The boy phoned from a call box in Scarsea to his friend in Manchester, and by the time the majority of Ella’s customers were arriving at the Windmill for a late breakfast, the news was there, waiting for them. By lunchtime it had reached Bristol, Tyneside and South Wales.