As we walk beside the wide estuary

we follow a wheatear as it waits for us

on the embankment of the rough causeway

then bobs and flits from stone to stone as we near,

enticing us, flashing its white rump,

which is pure white like an egret’s feathers.

We watch the tide beneath the low viaducts

begin to rise. On tracks Stephenson built

the London-Holyhead train crosses,

passes close to Edward’s grey castle walls.

Waders are gathering on the mudflats –

curlews, red shanks, egrets – denizens,

immigrants. This bird, which led us from its nest

among the embankment’s crevices, will

winter in Africa.