Not a soul to be seen on our start of day walk by the river.I can't think of anywhere you could go in the UK - Scottish Highlands excepted - where you could be out and about for an hour and not see another person or another car. There again it could simply be that the locals are waiting for it to warm up before venturing out.
On our way home we turn into the village and stop. The starlings are doing their thing again. Hundreds of them feeding on the ground and an equal number flying geometric patterns overhead. At times the sky black with them. When they change direction there's a sudden 'whoosh' of their wings. How do they manage to fly without bumping into each other ? What makes them all change direction at the exact same moment ? Why is it that they've all opted to descend on our little patch of paradise ? As we walk on another, equally large , flock of starlings comes to join the others.
So, that's another pandemic week over. They're beginning to merge into each other now. With all the restaurants and cafes closed we're spending our evenings at home. Sometimes, if it's mild, we'll go out into the garden with a glass of wine and watch the sunset. On nights without a wind we'll linger outside long enough until it's dark enough to see the Chinese and Russian spy satellites tracking their way over the Airbus facility at Toulouse. On a good night we can see maybe a dozen. The trick is to be prepared for them to come at you from any point on the compass.
The days getting noticeably longer now. After an early breakfast Sophie sits in the rising sun and guards the garden. The village C-A-T-S sometimes take a shortcut across the orchard on their way back from mouse hunting.
Today a ginger tabby - we think it belongs to the lawn mower repairman -makes the mistake of doing this directly in Sophie's line of sight. There is a 'howling'.
A little later the enlarged starling flock decides to settle down on the plane trees that line the lane. The sound of a couple of a thousand birds in full song is deafening in a wonderful sort of way. What a simple but amazing pleasure.
So starts a Sunday morning in deepest deepest France profonde.
This is seemingly very popular with those Americans wanting to avoid close contact with others. 'The Font' seems unimpressed :https://www.undercanvas.com/
This may be a better bet.Botswana is one of the least densely populated places on the planet. We'd still have to go through 3 airports to get there :https://xigera.com/lodge/the-baobab-treehouse
7 comments:
Well, even if you didn't see any people on your walk - the ginger tabby gave Sophie something to howl about. The very audacity!
8ยบ here this morning and after donning arctic gear, and getting Inca all excited, we had to curtail out walk. As we stepped out through the door the heavens opened. Perhaps we'll try again later, or this will be the fourth day without a walk.
Not keen on the first canvas offering, but the Botswana treehouse looks very appealing - just a long way to go!
Wonderful shot of the starlings. I've also bookmarked the hotel in Botswana. I've not been able to persuade my husband to venture to Africa yet, but this is high on my list. In Japan, we receive a lot of calendars from clients, and last year I snagged a Botswana calendar that kept me good company through the 2020 portion of the pandemic.
The precision involved in the movements of a flock of starlings is one of the world's wonders - no human aeronautics display can come close to competing.
It feels somewhat ironic to those of us based in Aberdeen that we are allowed to go for walks in a busy city park (and stand in a queue for a takeaway coffee) but the vast empty spaces of the Grampian Highlands, beyond the 'city limits plus five miles' range are out of bounds...
Cheers, Gail.
Starlings are amazing and mesmerizing. I've read that passenger pigeons in the U.S. had such huge flocks they could blot out the sun for days. But they were hunted to extinction.
Hari OM
I love camping - The first one would do me fine. Had a similar experience some forty years back in Kenya - on the Masia Mara. Nothing beats hearing hippos brushing past the tent in the early morning...
Seeing a starling murmuration is an equal wonder. YAM xx
Your starlings are eating the small grit which sometimes gathers along the edges of roadways. They need it for their digestion.
Interesting you'd see the Starlings doing their air-acrobatics because we had a flock of what I guess was several 100 in our yard late this afternoon. They covered our yard, and when I scared them away, I watched them do their dance in the air and making coordinated split-second turns -- it's fascinating. I cannot imagine a flock of several thousand, which I know has been seen in other parts of the world.
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