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