Soft light and the weight of birds.

Today the day dawned to a soft gray sky, an even light all around and the sea the colour of a herring gull's wing, slate.
Last night the moon could not be seen. Cloud blanketed the night but the brightness of the moon's light shone through and it was a pearly dark. No shadows, still, beautiful, and in the distance a murder of rooks called into the night.
As the sun came up the birds began to sing, more rooks to call and across the valley wild geese of autumn gathered. Apples hang on the leafless trees. Grasses in the garden are golden. Leaves on the rose bushes are turning amber and rose hips shine like bright blood beads on thorn branches.
Blackbirds pick at the sloe berries. Greenfinch and chaffinch and sparrow and titmice strip the bird-feeders and flick in constant busy flight along the blackthorn hedges. Flocks of starling fall from the sky, black clouds of birds that bend the branches of the trees with their weight of numbers.
It is autumn.