Autumn is the time for every home-loving Animal to mend their roofs and pack their larders full—but it is also the season of the great southward migration: birds from as far north as Norway crossing vast distances to find gentler homes for the winter. On any clear night, River Bankers hear huge flocks passing just overhead, thousands of wings together making a sound like the ocean.
It is sometimes hard for the more restless River Bankers not to wish they also were travelling. A few actually do so—the Water Rat often heads out on a long tramp to no-one-knows-where, returning only when October has settled in and the air is not so full of yearning. But for many of the others, it is enough to listen. At dusk, they climb Parlement Hill [sic, THIS IS SPELLED CORRECTLY], carrying coach rugs and picnic baskets, to watch the flocks stream past, silhouetted against the stars and moon, and to listen to their foreign cries and the sound of so many wings. Where are the birds all going? What home will they find? What new friends? What mischief?
That is the question, isn’t it? The RiverBank has its own new friends coming in just a few weeks, as it happens. There will be plenty of opportunities for fun and mayhem—but there will also be moments like this to experience with them, when something beautiful becomes so much better by being shared.
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