The sequel checks in with the unmoored but largely lovable characters from the first movie as they face middle age.

Here the exploring party left their boat and proceeded on foot across a sandy belt of land, with a chain of fresh-water ponds with muddy spaces between them, where the curlew and the whimbrel, the plover and the snipe, found ample feeding-ground, plunging their beaks into the congenial ooze, and the herons, those gloomy monopods, wait in patience the approach of the scaly prey.

It is good to let the glue get nice and thick through many renewals, but if the glue gobs up unevenly, remove it with a scraper and hot air gun.

Once a redbird shot confidently down from above on half-closed wing, caught sight of these intruders, brought up with a swish of feathers, and eyed them gravely for some time from a neighbouring treelet.