At Eldwick Crag in West Yorkshire, amidst low light and high winds, a flock of jackdaws prepares to roost for the night with seemingly joyful aerial displays.
A Playful Flocking Display
According to the author’s observations, jackdaws appear to relish blustery weather the way dolphins enjoy choppy seas, bobbing, banking, yawing, and wheeling through the air above a quarry copse. While not possessing the enigmatic spectacle of a starling murmuration, this gathering of small, clacking crows is full of bustling and garrulous life.
Encounters Across the Moorland
As evening falls and the sky turns a deep, soft pink, belted galloway cows and calves browse watchfully on the upward meadow slopes, casting long shadows across the bracken. Further ahead on the moor, where the faded heather glows copper-coloured in the late sun, linnets zip overhead on the wind, and a red grouse performs a noisy call near the edge of a grouse estate.
Along the path, three small honey waxcap toadstools resembling nuggets of unpolished gold are spotted in the grass. A little further along, the path leads past the long body of a dead hare stretched out on the peat, its body partly plucked and eye sockets empty, serving as a reminder that jackdaws and their crow relatives are not always playful.
As the day almost completely fades, a barn owl appears like a white ghost of the dusk, shearing through the twilight and following a purposeful line of pursuit into the undergrowth on the hill’s flank.
