The moss fool or dotterel is one of my favourite birds. I am never really sure why? The sex reversal issue may be a tempting reason but I must admit I love all the wader group.

Many prefer birds of prey but that is a bit hackneyed now and sort of follows the sad trend the media is showing, particularly TV with deadly animals, a driving to the bottom, the lowest common denominator, pandering to the school boy wildlife mentality, if there is no blood and gore its all a bit boring!!!! We must have a kill, or if our squeamish minds mean we can't cope with that, we must have the anticipation of one, then the anticlimax when the predator misses, though we all know it must kill some of the time.

We seem to be driven by a desire to revel in the killer, crime or wildlife, its all the same, we need the adrenalin rush. We also want our new breed of presenters to be hard, they can poke a stick at the snake and jump when it strikes, what men, sadly, or not so, they do all seem to be men.

So what happened to the aesthetic? - step in the waders, that subtle line and curve, the beautiful proportioned neck and bill, its a design classic, its the E type, Concord or Kawasaki H1 of the bird world (I have a H1, what an awesome machine, would love an e type but the fortunes of the average wildlife photographer can't run to one). Malcolm Sayer could have drawn the blue print for the wader outline! 

So a week or two ago I had one of my best days recently. I spent it with a couple of very confiding dotterels, not so mossy or foolish but just sheer elegance with a tinge of the arctic chucked in, such a stunner!  

Just revel in the beauty and simplicity of natures design classic - the dotterel.