Rivers in the sky

I just saw the most amazing thing.

So, here I am, minding my own business when, from the corner of my eye, I see that the small view of sky I get from the kitchen window is blacked out. I'm a bit perplexed...but can't be too bad whatever it is, right? (Alright... the first thought that entered my mind was "The Apocolypse", I admit...so what?)

Anyway, so....I venture out to the back porch. I saw the most amzing thing, like nothing I've ever seen before. Thousands and thousands and thousands...probably millions.... of swallows dotting the sky. They made it look as if I were looking up at a black ocean. It was like a swarm of locusts, except you could still make out the sunset backdrop.

At first glance, it looks like a perfect example of the "brainless" chaos of the animal kingdom. But then, as I watched them just pour across the sky above me from nowhere, my eyes adjusted and I could see... there's all these intricate patterns. Looping and following, periodically some stop for a rest, while others rise higher. It literally looked like rivers flowing above my head. Rivers whose evolution is being sped up right in front of me while I stand still in time. Changing paths. Winding and weaving. Splitting and converging.

Then suddenly drop. Disappear into the forest. When someone shoots a gun in the air and something completely indescribable happened. They all flew into the sky at once like an upside-down tornado funnel forming in less than a second. And in that fraction of a second, the sky was covered again...

and I guess everyone had arrived and it was time to set out to the south! Got a big journey ahead!

I suppose that means I ought to buy a winter jacket soon, eh?

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad." -- C.S. Lewis