Eden Wild Goose Nature
Nature notes from the Focus Magazine March 2021

 

Of Mud, Mangelwurzels and Murmurations

It seems to me that we ‘ve had a lot of mud so far this year. Not only mud, it’s true, with a little ice and frost to ring the changes and bring some crispness. But mostly mud, deep squishy, squelchy mud. So it is, when out walking, I totter and slither while the puppy runs around joyously, showing me up with her frisky freedom from fear, cavorting happily with whatever is to hand (or mouth, in her case). That’s where the mangelwurzels come in, she loves a run through the mud with a mouldy mangelwurzel while I laboriously plod along, trying not to look outpaced, outmanoeuvred and generally outdone. Human wet weather winter gear does not begin to compete with a Labrador’s warm and water repellent double thick coat. Though I’d like to think we don’t smell as much.
 
Anyway, that’s where murmurations come in. The thing about walking through mud is that it’s hard to look upward and outward and in these days of a particularly grey winter, confined as we are by weather and Covid restrictions, we need to look up, away from ourselves and our own feet of clay if we are to raise our spirits. On one afternoon last week, the contrast between claggy mud and mouldy mangelwurzels and looking outwards and upwards burst upon me with such clarity. I’d done the muddy, mangelwurzelly thing, retired in doors rather sensibly and was busy skyping a long- distance friend. As you do, we were both intent on changing the world, mulling over the philosophical issues of why this, and why that and I looked, I like to think thoughtfully, out of my window as if searching for the answer beyond.
 
The same view as usual, or so I assumed, when suddenly rising high in the sky in the distance over the garden, over the field, over Warwick on Eden, a vast hoard of starlings ascended as one co-ordinated body, swelled into a balloon shape, and then separated into two large masses before swirling together again, somehow avoiding collisions. The glorious dance continued for only a minute at most, and I was transfixed, set alight, lifted from the muddy dreariness and insolvable problems, and caught in the beauty and poetry of the moment. A law unto themselves, the mass of thousands dropped as suddenly as they had risen, down to their roosting patch where they were no doubt squabbling over who was going to perch where and who had the best spot inside the crowd of birds, where it was warmer and safer from predators.
 
What a privilege, what a joy, what a gift to behold. Gratitude seems the only appropriate response to this wonder of nature. I was back the next day, staring through my window at dusk, but this time the birds didn’t appear, or I missed them. A helpful reminder that natural wonders are not there for us and can’t be ordered up like a Deliveroo takeaway. But the memory is there to brighten and encourage when stuck in those muddier times and places.
 
And I and my friend, who shared the moment virtually, totally forgot what we had been worrying about, at least for a while.

Philippa Skinner

To watch a spectacular murmuration,
or search for RSPB Starling Murmuration