Low-flying Crows

I've been walking the dog in the evenings down in the Cwm-yr-Eglwys / Pwllgwaelod, specifically to see the starling-like displays of jackdaws and rooks coming in to roost. This evening was the best show yet - really quite something. The crows were split into 3-4 wheeling flocks when I arrived around 4:30 pm, twisting and turning like shoals of sardines in the sea. They usually end up in the tall trees on the south side of the valley after some noisy formation flying, but today they came very fast and low into the top of the willow scrub right opposite me. Some birds were flying through gaps in the gorse on the hillside they were that low. Quite large groups of birds passed me at head height and the combined force of all that feather power sounded, or felt, incredible. They continued chattering away as they settled, and once in a while a noise like wind tearing at a wet sail rippled through them. I was wondering why they were acting like this - wind direction, a disturbance at their usual roost perhaps, when the silhouette of a large peregrine (I think) came floating along over our heads.


Another interesting silhouette flew by in the gloom - I think it was a water rail, which I've seen on a previous occasion coming into the 'swamp', in the twilight, from the direction of Dinas Head. It was so dark by this stage though, that I could hardly see the robin hopping along the path in front of me, or the dog for that matter.