Listen With Others

Malva, in case you didn’t know, is Dipper-that-was. Under his previous pseudonym, he regaled us with his garden and associated exploits. Now he has a bit of a twitch going, and his previous puzzle, a year ago, had birds of different colours to be entered in those colours. I wondered if the birds this week would disappear in a somewhat milky hue.

Thematic clues had wordplay only, so I passed on them for the time being, although they were probably birds. I failed with the first (CONACRE was new to me), but URSON, POM-POM, OUD and DILATE were solved, and it seemed fairly straightforward where they would go in the grid, even though both grid and clues were unnumbered.

The 12-letter entry Embodies clearness in a broadcast (12) was an obvious anagram, and starting with CLARANISSEEN, I soon spotted CARNAL and then ENCARNALISES, although it wasn’t a word I’d come across before. Skipping ahead to the other 12-letter entry Lacking potassium, error in packet mix for modelling material (12), I could see that it was another anagram, this time of error in packet without the K (potassium), but unfortunately CARTON-PIERRE would have to wait before being entered.

It was only after I had come across my second clue that I couldn’t fully understand, that I reread the preamble and realised that there was an extra word which would enable, among other things, resolution of any ambiguities. Luckily, I hadn’t suffered too much head-scratching before noting this.

After my first run through the clues, I thought I could see a ROBIN trying to appear at 4dn (if the grid had had clue numbers). I tried the thematic clues, and was surprised that the first was easy and led to FALCON (Cornish river conservation (6)). PETREL, SONG THRUSH, SPARROW-HAWK and something QUAIL also appeared. Tinkering with the remaining letters of the anagram gave VIRGINIAN, and Mrs B had ‘colin’ (not ‘robin’) under Quail. Lo and behold, Chambers had ‘Virginian quail’ under colin.

The rest of the solve went pretty smoothly. It was with song-thrush→MAVIS←woman I think, that I could see that the extra words in the clues were other definitions of the words to be entered:

• humming-bird→HERMIT←solitary
• petrel→PRION←pathogen
• ringdove→QUEST←search
• song thrush→MAVIS←woman
• sparrowhawk→MUSKET←arm
• Virginian quail→COLIN←Nick (I never knew that Colin was a diminutive of Nicholas!)

Finally, falcon→GENTLE←Milky enabled the slot under the grid to be completed.

Thanks for some nice ornithological entertainment, Malva.