not with a bang, but a murmur

Wall, Northumberland, February 2023

Not far from Hexham, just a mile or two out over the other side of the Tyne, is a village called Wall. It’s about as sleepy as they come, and delightful for it. It has steep hills, dense woodlands, the remnants of ancient roundhouses, and a world heritage site in the form of Hadrian’s Wall, all within a very short walk from the village green. And there’s a Scandi-Northumbrian restaurant with a Michelin star on the main drag, just as you enter from the south. But apart from all of that - nothing at all notable about the place.

Until the winter of 2022 that is, when word started to spread about a group of Starlings who had seemed to have lost their way. They set up shop in the centre of Wall and each evening, as the sun was setting and they came back to their temporary home to roost for the night, if all the right conditions were met, something magical would happen. By the end of the season, towards the end of February, people were driving from miles around to catch the show.