They catapulted through a grid of contrails which unfurled with the earth’s magnetic force and were crisscrossed with columns of heat and cool that sometimes, but not always, condensed into clouds. They spread into formation, spanning forwards and backwards and sidewards, and as flock, they undulated across the sky, drawn by the mesmeric pull in the bridge of their brows and the whoosh and whistle of soft air rushing through tunnels of air wound dense, the pressurised wrench, the urgency that tugs them, soaring on on on, soaring soaring soaring until, suddenly, they stopped.

They burst into the water and into the sky, and hunted and rafted and scattered, and hunted and rafted and scattered, and so wove into the greater flock, the adult flock.

As flock, they hunted and rafted and hunted and rafted until their beaks drew them up, up and along. As flock, they hurtled south again along tracks of air, flowing and rippling across the sky; drawn by the mesmeric pull through the whoosh and whistle, air soft, air dense, the pressurised wrench, the urgency that tugs them, soaring on on on, soaring soaring soaring until, suddenly, they stopped.

Her scent drew him towards her, as sure as the need to migrate drew flock north then south again. North then south again. North then south again. North then—

South again, and together, he and she teased themselves from flock, and together, they formed their own little us (no bird is only an I). He flew in her wake and she flew in his, dodging and feinting on the breeze, bombing bait balls and darting through the water after fish. Always, they rafted up side by side.

They excavated a sandy burrow with their beaks and webbed feet and then, in its hollow, the egg birthed from her downy under-feathers as the full moon births from the mauve haze of the oceanic penumbra: it surfaced as a perfect, pearlescent orb. But as it continued to emerge, it stretched into an ovate shape and was not like the cold moon at all. Tucked up beneath his fluffy, feathery rump, it was smooth and round and warm warm warm. Tucked up beneath her fluffy, feathery rump it was smooth and round and warm warm warm. Warm warm warm warm warm.

When it wasn’t beneath him he was hunting the ocean for krill to share and when it wasn’t beneath her she was hunting the ocean for krill to share. The orange slough burst from him when he returned to their burrow and found her preening the wispy down of their chick: it burst from him and into their chick’s gaping gullet. Then he preened the chick’s down while she hunted the world, nuzzling the soft fluff with his beak, breathing in that new chick smell.

He and she and the chick were their own us, in their own burrow. No bird is only an I.