Or at least our little portion of it.
I was walking to work this morning when I heard a near-deafening cacophony of cheeping and chirping, an overwhelming waterfall of bird sounds.
To my astonishment, I saw a cloud of robins rising from and perching in a holly tree ripe with berries. There were simply too many birds for the holly to support them, so many more were perched on the bare branches of nearby trees or the ledges of houses.
I’ve seen vast murmurations of starlings forming and reforming patterns in the air like plumes of smoke, huge clusters of cedar waxwings gorging themselves silly on wild cherries, bushes dense with sparrows like feathered fruit. I have never seen this many robins in one place, and I’m a little worried.
Does it presage some disturbing, bitter shift in the weather? An extra-long winter during which we’ll all need as many berries as we can eat? Or…the beginning of a vast avian conspiracy to overcome the globe?
Only time will tell.
I was walking to work this morning when I heard a near-deafening cacophony of cheeping and chirping, an overwhelming waterfall of bird sounds.
To my astonishment, I saw a cloud of robins rising from and perching in a holly tree ripe with berries. There were simply too many birds for the holly to support them, so many more were perched on the bare branches of nearby trees or the ledges of houses.
[because this is a poor-quality phone photo I've circled the visible robins--more are too blurred by their motion to be seen. I count at least 80.]
I’ve seen vast murmurations of starlings forming and reforming patterns in the air like plumes of smoke, huge clusters of cedar waxwings gorging themselves silly on wild cherries, bushes dense with sparrows like feathered fruit. I have never seen this many robins in one place, and I’m a little worried.
Does it presage some disturbing, bitter shift in the weather? An extra-long winter during which we’ll all need as many berries as we can eat? Or…the beginning of a vast avian conspiracy to overcome the globe?
Only time will tell.
{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}