A sound like a train, or maybe a single wave

[bunn]

I was looking out over the valley one morning this week, when I heard a huge sound. Not a very loud sound, but the sort of noise that is only made by quite large things. I thought at first it was a train, and then I realised that the nearest station is too far away. It sounded like the train was going past on the track that would once have run across the hillside above our house but that line was closed in the 1960s. Ghost Train!

Then I looked up and realised that the noise was made by an enormous cloud of tiny birds passing overhead, a really huge flock that stretched right across the entire village. Before I could do anything sensible like get some binoculars to try to see what sort of birds they were, they had flown off up the valley and disappeared.

In other news, I offered my visiting butterfly a piece of tissue that I had soaked and rinsed in clean water, then added a few drops of orange juice and a little fructose. She ignored it for a couple of days, but today she is sitting on it with her proboscis poked into the soggy tissue, so I assume my offering has been accepted. There are a few nectar plants in flower in the garden, but I'm guessing she's probably happier indoors until the weather is warmer. She appears to only have four legs, and looking into this, I discover that the Tortoiseshell is one of the Four Footed butterflies, which have reduced forelimbs that are kept tucked up out of the way. I've never noticed that before, even though the garden is often full of tortoiseshells...

Comments

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Starlings maybe?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I thought 'Starlings!' directly after 'Ghost Train!' but then I thought they looked smaller and not as... pointy as starlings. Although it's possible that they were in fact not Small, but simply more Far Away than I had realised. In which case it was a truly ginormous flock!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Miniature crebain sent as spies from Devon?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Tiny, tiny crebain! Although I think I have previously speculated that Saruman might be holed up in the quarry up the hill, and if they came from there, they were actually Our Brave Crebain on their way out over the border to spy on the Vurriners in Devon. :-D