Caught the last of the light this afternoon (and it is lighter a little later every day when the sky is as clear as it has been today), and it was a fine stomp round.
However, the same tramp round this morning turned into something quite special: up before the sun though the eastern horizon was lightening, the now waning moon still high in the sky along with one remaining star. It was clear and cold and there were the lights of houses and moving traffic down below as the day got going.
As we turned along the boundary of the lower field and started to head back down there was a flock of birds wheeling over the adjacent field, a mixture of noisy crows and starlings twisting and turning and apparently having a high old time. But what made it extraordinary was the sudden appearance of hundreds more, rushing pell-mell to join them from every direction until there was the most enormous cloud of noisy delirious black shapes, a murmuration and a murder combined, quite the most awe-inspiring sight I can remember witnessing in a long time. And it felt like witnessing, not just watching, as if there was some sort of symbolic significance to the display. Quite a start to the day!
(It`s at times like this I feel my powers of description are woefully inadequate, further underlined by the fact that I`ve just read The Gallows Pole a novel by Benjamin Myers, a dark narrative set in 18th century Yorkshire, based on a true story of rogues and villains but with some of the most poetic and brilliant description of landscape I`ve come across. Us lesser mortals can only read in wonder.)
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