not with a bang, but a murmur

Location
Wall, Northumberland

Thread
In early 2022, word spread of a murmuration of starlings that had settled in a village called Wall. People talked about the starlings because of the birds strange choice of winter roost (a copse in someone’s front garden), because the birds hadn’t visited before, and because there were thousands and thousands and thousands of them. At around 5pm each night, if certain conditions were met, the starlings would approach the village from all directions in tiny wisps and ribbons, they would coalesce into shapes and shadows and move in ways that rooted hundreds of visitors into silent, startled, stillness.