Before the storm. A murmuration

An exhilarating, uplifting treat on a cloudy rainy late Friday afternoon in October.

The weather was already drawing in as Storm Ophelia approached, it would hit the North Cornwall coast the next day and, whilst the wind would blast across the land and the sea rile and roar its angry brilliant -white foamy water surge up the beach, it would not be as strong nor bring the threat of coastal floods, unlike storm Brian a few weeks later which coincided with spring tides. 

The autumnal evening was drawing in, though the leaves on the trees around were still predominately green only just beginning to turn their rich vibrant reds, yellows and orangey browns.  A leaden gloom of mizzle sky interspersed with sharper, snappier bouts of rain hugged the land muting all to earthen shades. A few gulls flew overhead, but otherwise, the sky was quite empty of birds. That is until we stopped at the traffic lights at the bridge that takes us over the river from Wadebridge towards Rock. Pausing, waiting for the lights to change, a small flock of starlings flew left to right across the road and out across the field beyond, we turned and saw that there were many small flocks of starlings accumulating, melding together as they met, moving as one. A murmuration was forming. Lights changing, we drove across the bridge, turning back at the earliest opportunity, parking up, walking, phone camera in hand, hoping that we had not missed them.  We hadn’t.

First, we struggled at times to see them, so far in the distance they were, but in the distance, a starling mass, swirling and sweeping their way across the fields, sometimes low, sometimes rising, twisting, intertwining, a breathing helix a flutter.

A swathe of black, grey shapeshifting starlings wound their way out over the road, over our heads, and out across the field routing closer , they swooshed speedily, seamlessly overhead then gently sinking towards the grass below, skimming out across the field and over the stream, disappearing as they melded into the landscape then rising to begin their dance in unison once more.

Not a bad end to a working week, not a bad start to a weekend.