Blackbirds bring a winter gift

I thought the sound was rainfall.

Rain wasn't falling. Looking up, I realized the sound was hundreds of wings, united in symmetry. Flocks of small birds flew above me, passing over my neighbor's house across the street and filling the branches of trees. They kept coming, foraging from tree to tree.

I watched in wonder, until at last they vanished into the distance.

They were probably blackbirds, as identified by AJC wildlife writer Charles Seabrook in a column several years ago describing a similar experience.

A normal part of nature for hundreds of years seemed miraculous to me. In a major city, on a winter's afternoon that felt like spring, they appeared, magnificent in their intelligence.

When they disappear, the world will lose such beauty.