It had a long curved beak
One morning, having come to the field quite early, I grew tired of my play before my grandmother had ended her work. “I want to go home,” I begged, and I began to cry. Just then a strange bird flew into the field. It had a long curved beak, and made a queer cry, cur-lew, cur-lew. I stopped weeping. My grandmother laughed. “That is a curlew,” she said.
The wild geese had come north, but this fact alone was not proof that winter had gone