One small step for me, one giant leap for nature

Stepping out of Central Station, Belfast, at about 7pm on the Saturday before last, I saw, at the end of the street, a murmuration of starlings wheeling about the sky.

They were only, perhaps, 5,000, weaving and interweaving, a dark cloud changing shape above the tall buildings, but an astounding and absorbing sight, as such murmurations always are.

Once, the massed birds climbed vertically and formed a human shape swaying at the waist like a belly dancer.