Country diary: Lapwings are birds of my childhood – finally they have returned | Kate Blincoe

Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: I have memories of seeing them at night, on our pyjama-clad safaris round the farm, but they haven’t been here for a decadeThere’s a shimmering in the sky and I can’t work it out. Driving, I can only snatch glimpses of flickering light. I pull into a lay-by near home. Now I can make out five or six broad-winged birds, flying in a loose flock. They are black and white and their motion reflects the low sun, flashing light and contrasting dark, like a&n