Sun Mote Copse To the priest with his broken arrows

His mother had begun the habit of catching and stowing birds in a pit in the ground after having plucked the feathers from their wings- something she'd apparently done before, for someone else's kids, and now Bronco reaped the reward. She'd caught a magpie- one of her favourite birds to catch, though she admitted it wasn't easy- and had plucked the feathers from its wings and tossed it in a pit she'd dug that was too deep for it to get out of. When she'd brought it home, Bronco had immediately insisted that he should have it, and as soon as Niamh set it loose, he shouldered his sister out of the way, grabbed the bird- still alive, of course- and ran off with it. 

It made all sorts of horrible noises as he ran, half-dragging the poor bird, until he was far enough away from the den that he felt fairly sure it would be his, and no one else could take it from him. Once there, he let the bird go, and it tried over and over to fly away- but its wings were useless. It hopped away from him, but he simply stalked it and then pounced on it, as a sort of hunt-and-catch game. It couldn't go terribly fast, so he let it go a bit further each time, as he hung back, before he'd sneak up on it and pounce it again. The bird was miserable- but Bronco was having a good time, learning how to track and pounce. He even let the bird get far enough so that it was out of his sight before he tracked it down, and was getting better at doing so. 

Deciding to give the bird an even better head-start, Bronco let it go free and closed his eyes, waiting until he could no longer see it or hear it- and when he opened his eyes, he went into hunter mode. Lowering his head, he began to sniff around, zig-zagging this way and that way as he tracked down his ready-made prey again.