Birds and humans enfolding their shared action in audible dissonance

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/22/blackwater-carr-norfolk-birds-humans-dissonance

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There are precious few instances when modern farming seems at peace with nature, but this moment by the beet field under the winter sun was glorious. The constituent parts were entirely prosaic. There was a huge bright-red harvester going back and forth along the beet rows. This machine aligned its operations with a John Deere tractor and trailer that intermittently dumped the beet on an ever-larger sugar mountain by the field edge.

Enveloping all the agricultural action was a ceaseless flow of about 500 black-headed gulls. Bird for bird, this species is a modest beast. In winter the creature looks glinting white against the dank land, but in detail its pearl-grey wings bear a pale blade on the leading edge and each fan is obliquely angled at its mid point like a scimitar. In concert these wings create an aura of flashing motion around the bird's pink bill and dangled red legs. In unison a flock of 500 produced a shining river of movement that washed over and crazed the sculptural outline of man's machines in watery lines of grey and silver.

Together the birds and humans enfolded their shared action in audible dissonance. The grind of gears and engine noise and then all that vile swede-sour sweetness tumbling heavily on to the steel plate of the trailer floor all cut across the wild music of the birds' rolling "craa" notes. Yet the entire vision itself seemed nicely unified. There was even a distinct visual rhyme between the perpetual wheel of the birds and the toothed belt that relentlessly dug the beet out the soil, then uplifted the crop to a holding bin on the harvester's back. Adorning the scene were a few filigree details: a scatter of pied wagtails that swirled up and around the larger event in airy lines, a marsh harrier twisting overhead against the burning sun, and then the surrounding stoical bare dark oaks that turned a field into a moment of English theatre.

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