A Murmuration of Starlings
![Cherry Cherry](/sites/abctales.com/themes/abctales_new/images/cherry.png)
![](https://www.abctales.com/sites/abctales.com/files/styles/cover/public/covers/Starling%20Murmuration.jpg?itok=KiOHj2E5)
By D G Moody
- 559 reads
Starling are beautiful birds, with their
white flecked iridescent black feathers,
showing greens and purples as they fly.
Come the autumn they arrive from afar,
to roost and nest in Fen Drayton lakes;
and as the afternoon wanes and the sun
slowly starts to sink from the sky they
group together in their family flocks.
With sunset approaching more Starlings
arrive from miles around to gather then
arise to form large and even larger flocks,
joining together into their many thousands,
a pulsing living cloud of birds that drift in
unison overhead in the suns failing light,
harbinger of the coming night, thus giving
impetus to this wondrous murmuration.
Aloft each bird then fixes its own position,
not to be closing on the next birds location;
then with wing responding to wing they
abandon themselves, becoming conjoined
into one single organism as a living cloud,
which flows and shape shifts up in the sky:
stretching out, folding back then wheeling
around to begin again another new shape.
From below we watch in awe, hearts agape
at this mesmerising display, until the light
fades, and the murmuration spirals down
to the ground to rest and roost in the reed
beds, becoming again smaller groups and
single birds that need not dream, for they
have already danced with natures divine;
as for us, we find our car and drive away.
© D G Moody 2024
- Log in to post comments
Comments
You have managed to capture
You have managed to capture something of the awesomness of being out in that dusky light and craning up to see the wonderful 'shape-shifting' flowing spectacle. Rhiannon
- Log in to post comments
A mesmerising display indeed.
A mesmerising display indeed.
Such displays aren't seen so much these days. I remember watching them as a child as they almost obliterated Belfast City Hall and the surrounding buildings. A fantastic feature of nature to see but considered a nuisance by many city councils who I believe took steps to 'move them on'.
Nice one Dougie. I enjoyed your poem.
Turlough
- Log in to post comments
there is beauty in the air,
there is beauty in the air, often we're too busy to see it.
- Log in to post comments