Though it may be August, and the sky (fleetingly) blue, these local starlings have already donned their winter plumage and started gathering together. Maybe a sign of a cold, hard winter? I don’t know, but as a winter lover I can live in hope.
Looking up at them, the words of Dire Straits came to mind:
And the birds up on the wires and the telegraph poles
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold
You can hear them singing out their telegraph code
All the way down the Telegraph Road
They can always fly away from this rain and this cold. Or they can stay, if they want, in their winter plumage, hustling me for chips on frosty grey days.
City Jackdaw 
Andy, I guess we shall see what winter holds for all of us. I treasure winter as it fades from the possible.
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As an avowed lover of the winter season I look forward to its arrival (in fact my favourite half of the year arrives with Autumn), although I’ve seen a change since I was younger. More rain, less snow. Still-the transformation is there.
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Love that photo! I’m wondering what winter will be like. My car needs to be winterized, that’s for sure.
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How much snow/how cold does it get where you live?
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Just learned about ‘murmurations’ which seem to be specific to covids…and the UK. Even though I think peak murmuration time is in the spring, the gatherings you mentioned here reminded me about them.
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I didn’t know about them being specific to the UK. Here murmurations are very much specific to starlings-they begin to gather together in Autumn and Winter for warmth and protection. We used to see great flocks here in my town but, as for so many birds, their numbers are falling. There are places in the countryside where you can go and watch this great spectacle-thousands of birds moving much in the manner of a shoal of fish. Quite a sight to behold. By the way-my poem These Hills I Know began when, as a postman in late autumn, I turned a corner and disturbed a great flock of starlings looking for food in the grass.
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