Tewksbury murmuration

We first heard about this amazing natural phenomenon on local TV and then from Blipper Longshadow who identified a new garden superstore car park as an ideal vantage point.

When we got there we joined about 50 others already peering skywards - some with binoculars others with tripods. The garden centre closed at 17h just as the spectacle began.

Even with the car park lights being switched on my iPhone still caught some of the aerial action reasonably well, I think.

The starlings flow effortlessly across the gloaming like iron filings on a 1960’s fuzzy face game. Massive whale like shapes one moment melding into gyrating fine ribbon the next. Like smoke from primeval beacons the birds billow between Cotswold escarpment and the floodplains of the Severn shimmering in the sunset.

If you are local and have never seen this spectacle we highly commend it. No guarantee but this week in the dry cold light they have convened at 17h and descend to roost shortly after 1730.

Earlier we walked around Tewksbury where the floods had prevented us on our last visit.

We walked fast because it was still very cold!