"The Hamerkop (Scopus umbretta) constructs, relative to its body size, the largest nest of any bird. A single structure may require eight thousand individual sticks, reach a metre and a half in diameter, weigh fifty kilograms, and support the weight of a man standing upon it. The bird is a compulsive collector, incorporating objects of no nutritive value — bones, feathers, cloth, and whatever else is available — into the nest's walls. It is, taxonomically, the only member of its family and genus. Several African traditions consider it a bird of ill omen, associated with lightning and misfortune; the author notes this for completeness while reserving his own assessment. The hamerkop's primary nesting structure is among the more impressive he has encountered."
The compass had been missing for four days.
The Colonel had searched the camp methodically — the tent, the camp table, the kit bags, the area around the fire. He had written in his notebook: Compass: absent. Cause: unknown. He had written this with the controlled frustration of a man who maintains records precisely in order to avoid this kind of situation.
Cetshwayo found it in the nest.
Not found it, exactly — identified it, from thirty feet, through the binoculars the Colonel had lent him for the morning's survey. The compass was visible in the nest's outer wall, its brass casing catching the morning light, woven into the structure with the casual thoroughness of an animal that does not distinguish between a stick and a navigational instrument when both are roughly the right diameter.
The Colonel stood below the nest and looked at his compass.
The nest was enormous. He had measured it the previous day — a metre and a half across, nearly as deep, the outer wall a dense interlocking of sticks that had the quality of something built to specific tolerances. He had pressed his hand against the wall. It did not yield. He had, in a private moment he had not recorded, stood on a lower section and found it entirely solid beneath him.
His compass was in there.
He wrote: Compass: located. Position: outer nest wall, approximately forty centimetres from base, woven in. Retrieval: pending assessment.
The assessment took some time.
The nest was occupied — not by hamerkops, who had built it, decorated it with the Colonel's property, and departed in the direction of the fever trees two days previously — but by a barn owl roosting in the upper chamber, a pair of rock kestrels in the entrance cavity, and something in the lower section that had left prints the Colonel identified, after consultation with Cetshwayo, as a genet.
He wrote: Nest: abandoned by builder. Current occupants: barn owl (upper), rock kestrels (entrance), genet (lower). Nest still structurally sound. Compass still inside.
He looked at the compass.
He looked at the barn owl, which had appeared in the entrance and was regarding him with the offended dignity of an animal that has not paid rent and intends to pay less.
He decided to leave the compass where it was. He wrote: Retrieval deferred pending exit of current occupants. Scientific caution.
He looked at what he had written. He wrote: Author notes that several African traditions consider disturbance of the hamerkop nest to bring misfortune. He records this for completeness.