The Gale of the World (2011)
“He worked himself back from the pegged slates and stepping from joist to joist reached the trap-door and lowered himself on his rope; to slide down two rows of banisters and, reaching the ground floor, dash into the kitchen and cry, “Dad’s come! Cor, the starlings are what-you-call tisky!”
Jonathan spent many hours, when not at school, in the attic. The spaces under the eaves were now a-rustle, for the swifts had returned from Africa to their nests.
The starlings waged territorial war w...ith them. Frightful cruelties went on behind the small entrance-exit holes. Thin high screams of swifts, flutterings, harsh cursings of starlings. Sometimes a narrow white egg dropped from under the guttering, the shell hole’d by thrust of starling-beak. Never a larger starling-egg, azure as clear summer sky between dawn and sunrise—a colour which should have belonged to the swift, thought Jonathan, since these mysterious birds, each a thin crescent of black, never left the sky at night to roost under the eaves.MoreLess
Jonathan spent many hours, when not at school, in the attic. The spaces under the eaves were now a-rustle, for the swifts had returned from Africa to their nests.
The starlings waged territorial war w...ith them. Frightful cruelties went on behind the small entrance-exit holes. Thin high screams of swifts, flutterings, harsh cursings of starlings. Sometimes a narrow white egg dropped from under the guttering, the shell hole’d by thrust of starling-beak. Never a larger starling-egg, azure as clear summer sky between dawn and sunrise—a colour which should have belonged to the swift, thought Jonathan, since these mysterious birds, each a thin crescent of black, never left the sky at night to roost under the eaves.MoreLess
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