I’m writing this on a full moon day here in England. I’ve woken up to a beautiful frosty morning. Their flight over the land is like watching cloud waves. They came to land on a tree near my window and I realised how big each one is. I’ve been seeing them quite regularly recently as they come to nest in the fields. There’s a really uplifting feeling just before they come and sometimes, I think I know that they’re coming just from that feeling. I’m intrigued by how the wave of starlings in the skies also seems both collective and individual. Each one is a life by itself but it is also very much part of a community that instinctively moves together.
My novel, The Last Beekeeper, also explores how bees live collectively. It’s interesting to think about murmurations of starlings and swarms of bees in terms of our own species and how our ways of being can be brought into awareness by studying other creatures. I’ve talked a little about that in the interview that I did for Terrain Magazine. You can find the link for that in links and events.
