Story from a recent road-trip...

[elke_tanzer]

I had to stop for gas along one of the highways in one of the agricultural areas outside of Los Angeles recently, and was sort of vaguely grumbling to myself about the poor choice of music being played near the gas pumps, but it wasn't really loud or painful or anything, it was just... un-enjoyable.

But then there was this soft, growing, steadily louder whooshing sound, which rose and rose and suddenly I realized it had eventually drowned out the music.

I looked up, and there were three huge flocks of small birds circling closely overhead. The sound of their wings was collectively loud enough to overcome the sound of the music, and the crescendo of the air moving around them was this completely amazing sound.

Comments

[haruka]

Wow. I love birds; I wonder what kind they were ...?

:-)

[elke_tanzer]

I suspect that one of the flocks was a bunch of gray and white and brownish-speckled pigeons, but I could be wrong; they might have been some kind of dove, I suppose. The others... well, they were the little dark-brown and/or black little birds that seem to love big industrial-sized agricultural fields in the central valley of California. I don't really know what they are, but they always seem to travel in big flocks every time I see them (which is rarely... I don't often get up that way).

[softestbullet]

:D

[zillah975]

Oh, wow, that is awesome.

[loligo]

Oh, what wouldn't I give to be able to go back in time and see (and hear!) passenger pigeons doing that.

(Many birds in the blackbird family form large mixed flocks in the winter. Usually the giant flocks that I see are mostly starlings and grackles, but there can be brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, etc., mixed in there.)

[weaverbird]

Oh, how beautiful that must have been!