It's just about winter, which means that the starlings have moved into Rome. Actually they start showing up towards the end of October, when the cold begins creeping into the countryside at night. Every evening they swoop down on the city, drawn there by the warmth that seeps out of the concrete and buildings and that puffs out of cars and buses. A rather bizarre migratory evolution if you think about it.
I don't remember the exact first time I saw a flock of starlings in the distance, but I'm sure I did not recognize it as a flock of birds. I probably didn't really notice it at all at first. A barely visible, faint gray smudge far far away in the periwinkle sky. A wisp of smoke. A momentary cloud. But it doesn't dissipate. It hovers, suspended in place, gradually shifting shapes and becoming darker. Then lighter, then disappearing, then all at once solid black, then shimmering to light gray once more. And so on and so forth, all the while creeping closer and closer as it elongates and billows and drips only to then compact in upon itself in a liquidy dance. Another ambiguous cloud appears from nowhere, or perhaps it was there all along, and the two approach one another, then retreat, then collide and become one in a perfectly choreographed ballet. Finally it is possible to make out individual black specks and, eventually, birds.
I can describe it this way because I have now seen the show so many times that I can actually sing along. But there is nothing like the first time. I really don't want to spoil it for you, but, like I said, the first thing that comes to mind is NOT a flock of birds. Instead, if you're anything like me, the experienced panicker within will see, in that first discoloration of the sky, the escaped byproduct of a nuclear reaction gone wrong and be frozen in place waiting for the distant scream of sirens. When those don't come and when the “cloud” has solidified into a more defined celestial entity than radioactive mist could ever be, the next most logical solution is of course a giant, carnivorous, alien amoeba. (Admittedly still not the most comforting thought, but at least a physical predator can be destroyed while nuclear fall out tends to be more of a long term problem.) Then, just when you fear that the amoeba must have strategically mesmerized you into non-action, you begin to see that what you are looking at is actually a swarm of millions of smaller creatures. A biblical quantity of smaller creatures in fact. LOCUSTS!!! It's clearly the end of the world. A mere split second before panic fully grips your heart you manage to focus on just one of the small dots and, with an enormous rush of relief, see a bird. (Though I'm not sure why millions of birds behaving this way shouldn't be equally alarming.)
The first fall that I knew my husband the phenomenon of the starlings was still relatively new to me. So one evening he took me to Piazza Cavour, one of their most concentrated spots. We sat on the marble steps of Palazzo di Giustizia and watched as the starlings twirled and swirled in the sky above the piazza. As they began flirting with the tree tops it started to rain. Just the very beginning of a light drizzle, a couple of drops every few seconds.
“Ohhhhh. It's raining and I left my umbrella at home,” I half-whined, still gazing up and feeling a fresh drop land near my upper lip.
“It's not raining.”
“Yes it is. Listen.” There was an obvious irregular pitter patter all around us.
“I don't feel anything...And there's not a cloud in the sky.”
“Well then where is it com-- OH NO!!!”
Oh yes. Poop. Lots and lots of poop. Thank goodness starling poop is not the quintessential big, white, slimy bird poop that we are all familiar with. Even so, according to Italian superstition, I had probably just become the luckiest girl in the world. My husband remained miraculously unsullied, but for the rest of the evening we kept discovering new spots where they had “gotten” me.
So that is the downside of what is otherwise a type of visual poetry. Every year hundreds of these flocks of birds spread themselves out over the city before roosting for the night. The same flocks return to the same roosts night after night. Even year to year there is only minimal variation. People who live and work in those areas know which sidewalks to avoid, know to bring an umbrella, and know when a parking spot is just too good to be true. It's now my third winter living in/near Rome and there are times when I still find myself awed by the sight of a billowing cloud of starlings. If we're in the area, my husband and I like to stop on Ponte Garibaldi, near Isola Tiberina, as they circle above the trees. Gradually they start to fill the limbs, though it always seems that there can't possibly be room for all of them. In the end somehow they do all find their place, becoming black foliage in the otherwise sparse winter branches. Below them, on the street, the sound of millions of birds calling to one another as they settle in for the night is a primal high pitched drone in which each single bird's voice is completely dissolved in the chaos. I know I'm not the only one who finds the whole scene captivating since we're never alone on that bridge.
One day I may stop noticing them as I do now. The starlings may become as much a part of my winter routine as snow flurries were to me in New York. But I will always hope and imagine that each night there is someone in Rome who is seeing it all for the first time.
