Success...

My cunning plan of posting about how ordinary and uninteresting it's been at work this week has worked!

It is early this morning, and I've gotten to work nice and sharp, as the threatened Frost and Ice and Snow of Doom has failed to materialise [In fact it's been very very sunny, then overcast and drizzly, but not even slightly icy, all day!]. Sitting by the mirror-smooth Dart [gently steaming; it was -1 in the valley] I am again vexed by Cormorants, as no less than 6 fly past low, but I again don't pick them up until they're receding rumps... [[Curses...]]

However, all is not lost as soon after a susurration fills the air - Starlings! Right overhead they fly upriver - I estimate a thousand but then am amazed and delighted to see they are but an outlier to the main flock, which is following the ridge across the valley and is numerous enough that their wingbeats are audible! There are enough to form a proper skydancing flock and we can hear the change in wing noise as they shift and swirl.. Holy Shit.

I've not seen a flock that size in Devon for years and I've been wondering where they'd come from. Earlier this week a dog walker had said she'd seen 'a lot of dark birds' coming out of a reed bed downriver - evidently Starlings - but I didn't think there were beds on the Dart big enough for that lot? [[Unless they were in conifers, of course]] I suppose they could have come up from Slapton, but there's tons of good feeding down there, so why move up so far north? Wherever they came from, they were an incredible sight, a piece of the Levels, and I'm still smiling now. :)

Changing tack, I'm feeling a bit detached right now. I've been watching all this stuff about ice and snow and so on on the news, but so far I've seen two frosty mornings, a whole heap of sunshine, and now light showers, a bit of wind, and no sign of anything freezing... If I listen to the forecasts I'll cower inside tomorrow, but my instincts tell me to get out and go birding. What to do? I know forecasters speak with forked tongue, but playing 'Cresta Run' in my little car on some Dartmoor lane does not appeal...