The Peco Incident by Des Hunt

stillness of the evening and the sounds of the birds at the end of the day, but the wait was far too longfor Nick to stay still. He started fidgeting and peering around the place. Then something caught his eye. Something on the hill opposite us.
    He nudged me with his elbow. ‘Look,’ he whispered.
    I turned and saw that there was something new on the slope rising up to the top of the cliffs. It was a bird-watching hide made from broken-off pine branches. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to drag stuff up from the trees around the car park. There wasn’t much to it: just branches arranged so that anything on the beach wouldn’t see the occupants. But we could see into it from our sand hill, and what I saw caused all my enjoyment of the evening to disappear.
    It was Brio and Roost.
    Brio was scanning the area through a telephoto lens on her camera, whilst Roost seemed to be drawing in an exercise book.
    ‘What are they up to?’ I asked.
    ‘Penguin-watching?’ suggested Nick.
    ‘Can’t be that,’ I said. ‘They haven’t arrived yet.’
    I followed the line of Brio’s lens. She seemed to be studying the lupins. As I watched, she stopped scanning to concentrate on one spot. She said something to Roost, who made a note in the book. Then the scanning resumed.
    The only thing I could think of was that they were looking for sea lions. I knew Brio hated the things. Maybe she wanted to make sure she never came across one by accident. It was either that or they were trying to spot places where the penguins might roost.
    My thoughts were broken by another nudge from Nick. Thistime he was looking towards the sea. A penguin was coming out of the water. When it got to the shallows, it stopped to sense its surroundings. Soon it was joined by two more. They stayed there as a group for several minutes, checking for danger. Nick took out his phone and pointed it at them.
    ‘They’re too far away,’ I said.
    He nodded, but took a photo anyway. When we looked at it, all we could see were some tiny dots on an empty beach.
    Eventually the penguins were satisfied that all was clear, and began waddling up the beach. At the high-tide mark, they stopped again. This time only a few seconds passed before the waddling continued. There were no further stops before they reached the lupins and disappeared from view.
    I looked across to check on Brio and Roost. Obviously they could still see the penguins, for Brio was tracking them through the lupins, giving Roost a running commentary on their progress. Roost seemed to be recording all the details. Whatever they were up to, it seemed to involve locating where the penguins would spend the night. Maybe they were hoping to find nests and photograph them.
    For the next half-hour we watched both the penguins arriving on the beach and the couple on the cliff behind us. The penguins always went through the same routine, and so too did Brio and Roost. When the birds got into the lupins, Brio would start talking and Roost would start recording. We couldn’t see the penguins, but I figured the talking and recording stopped only when the birds reached their destination.
    Nine penguins arrived in total, which wasn’t too bad for apublic beach. It was more than I’d seen before on Allans Beach. It seemed that all the work done to help the yellow-eyed penguin was getting results. That was some good information I could pass on to Murph whenever we got the chance to go and visit him.

    It was dark when we got back to the car park. Brio and Roost were already there, sitting in deck chairs, arranged in a way that suggested they were waiting for us. Roost was sucking on a bottle of beer, while Brio was chewing as usual.
    ‘Saw you down there,’ said Brio as we walked up.
    ‘Saw you, too,’ I replied.
    Brio nodded. ‘I noticed that.’
    ‘What were you doing?’ asked Nick, taking the direct route when I was hoping they’d offer the information themselves.
    ‘Mapping the penguin locations,’