Pigeon Discoveries

The Waddling Wood Pigeon

Derek Niemann | Guardian | 9th February 2022

Stellar instalment of the daily Country Diary, a column debuted in 1906. In a few hundred words, the writer sketches a complete and vivid scene. A deceptively slow-seeming pigeon is mounting a raid on some ivy berries. The fruit matures at different paces; no other birds have tried it yet. The plump bird "combines a gymnast’s grace with a bouncer’s weight" as it makes the grab (362 words)

Losing Discoveries

Carmen Faye Mathes | Public Books | 2nd February 2022

Commentary on Samuel Johnson's Dictionary from a scholar who helped to digitise it. She learned and then forgot hundreds of marvellous new words and their meanings, and came closer to the great man as a result. "I have come to relate to Johnson as more of a long-distance runner: an athlete whose particular facility lies in the way he marathons forth even as it pains him" (1,841 words)

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