Tuesday 20 September 2016

Last Glimpses of Cicero's Twitterer

It was either the swift or the swallow that the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero referred to as the "twitterer", a harbringer of spring, in a letter to his great friend the businessman Titus Atticus.

These particular twitterers gathering on the telegraph wires at South Muskham last week were signifiying only the coming of autumn, as they fed off insects and preened their wings ready to fly for Africa. They were a very noisy bunch of about 25 birds, scared off the wires by passing cars, but soon settling again, constantly twitching their tails and stretching their wings!

They too, like the summer, are now gone.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.09.16








4 comments:

  1. I guess I haven't seen them yet... Thanks for these photos, these birds are beautiful!

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  2. Always sad to see the summer visitors go but will be looking out for newly arriving winter visitors.

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  3. Thanks everyone, quite a few immature birds by the look of things, others look a bit rough and moulty.

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  4. Ah, beautiful shots here Simon, the swallows are always a welcome site come summer and it's always sad to see them leave once autumn rolls around. - Tasha

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