Twinkling

A flock of beautiful golden plovers soaring through the sky this bitterly cold afternoon.  Gorgeous how their white underwings catch the light as they wheel over the fields. The RSPB describe the wingbeats as twinkling and I can go with that.

Gregarious they form flocks in the winter as they move south to the farmland and estuaries to feed both in the day and night using hearing and sight to detect insects, worms,  small shellfish, and grass seeds.

A lack of owls meant JDO and I were standing squinting into the setting sun losing hope (my toes being like icicles) of an owl blip when this flock repeatedly rose up from the grasses and dropped in again. They were fairly distant but needs must.