One of those days when the skies are alive and life brims with chance. An outlook swings towards optimistic and the daily routine grinds a little less.
The twisting agility of insect hunters on the wing rubs some dynamism into thoughts that also dart along a lively, bouncing path. Fresh ideas spark positivity and there's a refound readiness to take on whatever lies ahead. Anticipation replacing trepidation. Swifts, swallows and martins can do that for me.
This is what we were made for. To be surrounded and connected to lives of feathers, fur and scales. Flowers, landscapes and "stuff" can be great but were not the subject for cave walls. It was always animals, and not just as food, there was appreciation and respect. They provide us with stimulation from which we thrive.
Or shall we swap this for dead days of lifeless skies? Where the fearful leaden heart sits heavy and drags a body into slump. And this would be no winter lull, with the prospect of spring mere weeks ahead. This would be pure, forever, loss where the endless air is never again filled with nature's flashing dancers. We are knowingly careless with what is done on our behalf and therefore culpable. Disinterest and inaction bought for comfort and convenience with a hidden cost to be wrought upon us all later.
With thousands of miles to travel, hopeless stretches devoid of fuel make the journey impossible. It's such a long and fragile chain for these little birds. Break a link and the wings can no longer row the air. And the stronger, heavier chain to greater loss binds tighter.
But those glorious skies of winged insectivores are not yet beyond us. There may still be another chance for me to climb Glastonbury Tor in England as I did one summer almost a lifetime ago and feel it again. It was a busy day but what I remember most clearly was being able to look down on the screaming swifts as they sliced the air to within inches of the ground around me. They grabbed a boy's heart and hold it still.
A brief word on composition. This picture is separated into three layers with swifts at the top, swallows in the middle and martins below. However, nature doesn't work quite so neatly so there is a bit of mixing, an overlap in these distinct but similar birds that, to me, adds to the buzz of life zipping around this particular sky.
Artwork created from macro photographs of urban decay.
