At first there were three dart-like shapes attached to sharp stubby wings; that shot past me from the left.  The three disappeared from sight within seconds.  In front of me the scene continued with its normal daily routine.  Cars and buses kept up a steady flow, people hustled along the sidewalks and in the sky and spaces between the buildings the resident pigeons and gulls did what they do best, picking up free meals and dodging traffic.  I looked at my watch. Two minutes had past.  The sun was very low in the sky, and all along the skyline (seafront) lights slowly flickered to life.  A bit of a waste of energy to my mind, as there was still a good half an hour of daylight left.

 Just as a icy breeze started tugging at my clothing, a small formation of five birds came rolling towards me and disappeared below the pier on which I was standing, only to pop up on the other side and be joined by another group of about 15 who had cunningly evaded my vigilant observation (and the local peregrine family to for that matter), and hastily zigzagged through the sky, twittering as they rounded the camera tower and met up with over a hundred hyper starlings that had loomed up, seemingly out of nowhere behind me.  Even this small number of birds was sufficient to emit a startlingly loud whoosh of wings as they shot over-head, a staccato of wet slaps trailing in their wake as droppings rained down around me.  And I swear a little triumphant chorus of twittering went up as a precision drop found its mark with a wet splatter on my cheek, narrowly missing ‘Mount Nose’ and falling just short of my right eye.  The starlings had a hit and their numbers kept swelling.

 By now more than a thousand birds were swaying and contorting in all kinds of shapes in the sky above the seafront buildings.  Changing shape and direction in response to the determined attacks by two peregrine falcons, who have made their home up high on one of the hotels that dot the skyline.  The “starling ball” would switch from a perfect sphere, to an hourglass and then would split in two, only to morph back into a big fluid ball, like mercury from an old fashioned thermometer, with a peregrine emerging thoroughly frustrated dazed at the other end.  (Thinking back thermometers would break with alarming frequency in my presence.  It was always accidental though! Honest.)

 The peregrines vanished from sight as abruptly as they had appeared.  Free from harassment, the starlings spread out and blanketed the sky above me, as they made their final approach to the pier and noisily secured a spot for the night.  I turned my attention to creating some panoramic images of the Seafront at night, while below me the gregarious starlings swapped stories of where the feeding was good, the cats were slow and photographers made good target practice.

 I packed away my gear and headed back into town, at the exact time (I like to imagine) that the starlings turned thair attention to discussing the finer points of evading peregine attacks.