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December 7th, 2023
“That doesn’t sound right.”
I first heard it while walking my dog at sunset. Scratch that. There wasn’t a sunset. Gray clouds were draped across the horizon in layers too thick for any direct light to get through. Forget golden hour, this was charcoal hour. But I didn’t notice that as much as the odd noises permeating the atmosphere. I felt an odd mixture of anticipation and finality and couldn’t figure out why.
Since the time change last month, I’ve been taking myself (and Billie) for winter walks as much as possible to try to combat my seasonal affective disorder. There’s a park near our house where Billie and I can do this mostly undisturbed and last week, I noticed a huge flock of birds had gathered there. I initially thought they were starlings because of how many there were; hundreds and hundreds of them jangling together like black coins through the sky. No other species of bird in our area flocks together in such large numbers. And then I heard it.