An early dawn drive captures the magic of mist, light and a sudden, spectacular dance of jackdaws for wildlife writer Jane Adams
I’m driving to Bath. The sun is just peeking above the horizon, highlighting the Dorset landscape one autumn-touched tree, one hedge, one field at a time. The road is empty.
It’s as if I’m the only person alive, and mist, snug like an eiderdown, fills every valley contour. I keep snatching a look.
Ahead of me, a track – black, and a few metres wide – crosses the road at tree height. I can’t work it out at first, but as I draw closer, what at first seemed solid reveals itself as four distinct wires, each one connected to poles on either side of the road. Perched on the wires are black birds: jackdaws. They have their backs to me, and though they are motionless, they look poised, as if waiting.
To their right is a tree, a large yew. I expect it’s where they spent the previous night, it’s by far the largest tree around. Squat and wide rather than tall and poised like an oak or beech, its multitude of thickset branches provide safety from predators.
Maybe my car startles them, or perhaps it was always their intention to leave at that precise second, but as I drive under the wires, every bird overhead takes flight.
At first, they envelop the car and my world gets momentarily darker.
Then they explode into a firework of cinders, scattering left and right, diving and soaring, each bird on its own fixed flight path, utterly haphazard yet perfectly choreographed in their chaos.
I gasp. Laugh.
Then I am suddenly overwhelmed at the raw, simple beauty, and I wipe away a tear.
I want to stop, but there’s nowhere to pull in.
I search for the birds in my rear-view mirror, but they have vanished.
Did I imagine them? I could believe that I had, but for my racing heart.
Jackdaws
In autumn and winter, jackdaws roost together in trees – sometimes a roost will contain several thousand birds – as protection against predators and also to conserve heat.
It may be roosts which provide these intelligent birds with a place to learn, too. Noticing a neighbour that is well-fed, and sharing knowledge of good foraging grounds, may be an added benefit of roosts.
Did you know?
A recent University of Exeter study found that roosting jackdaws wait for the roost’s squawks to reach peak volume before taking off together – they synchronise their flight by calling to one another, using safety in numbers as they take off.
