ABSTRACT
Standing at the window looking out into the garden one morning, I saw something that I had never seen before and did not understand. For about fifteen seconds this threw me into confusion, creating a sense almost of panic, and an intense struggle to find my bearings. I could see that it was an object, though I had no sense of its boundaries; there seemed to be some colours – red, black, white, and beige – that I could simply not associate with the garden. With a feeling like coming to the surface after jumping in at the deep end of a swimming pool, I realised that it was a bird larger than any I had ever seen in the garden. I reached for a bird book and found that it was a greater spotted woodpecker.
