Its Turning Into ...

... one of those weeks!




25 novembre - Santa Caterina d'Alessandria

I Storni

I was returning from an appointment in Trastevere this afternoon and decided to take the Ponte Palatini rather than my normal walk cross the Isola Tiberina - I had already had my ice cream on the way over, Sacher Torte and Zabalione. As I started across the noise of the rush hour traffic was almost drowned out by the calls of flocks of starlings.

It appears that the birds are staying around Rome these days rather than heading south the way they use to in November - but its not climate change just a change of vacation plans. It is not unusual to see clouds of them just before sunset.



The acrobatics were literally stopping traffic - a few people had gotten out of their cars in the middle of the bridge to take movies. I did a few seconds of video from the safety of the sidewalk.

It was a beautiful if at the same time slightly unsettling display. Alfred Hitchcock has a great deal to answer for!

24 novembre - Sant'Andrea Dũng Lạc e suoi 116 compagni di martiri

A Hitchcock Moment

Monday February 4, 2008 - 6 P.M.

This afternoon around five as I sat working in what we laughing call the Office - in better days it would have been the maid's room, a very small maid I might add - I became aware of the most incredible sound. It was a buzzing, flapping, whistling noise that sounded vaguely familiar; somewhere I had heard that sound before. And then it hit me: The Birds! Tippi Hedren!



I looked out the back window and there were thousands of swallows: hundreds perching on, as hundreds more swarmed around and into, the surrounding pines tree. The noise was almost deafing. I ran for the camera but it wasn't until later I remembered the video feature and caught the tail end of the event. Laurent saw them heading up Via Nomentana towards Porta Pia and said it was like an enormous - very noisy - cloud.

Ten minutes later there wasn't a bird in sight nor a chirp to be heard.

4 febbraio - San Gilberto