We were warned that rain was coming – and so it did, barrelling down all night, falling through the darkness on to ground that was already saturated. By the time it was light, the rivers through Bridport had risen and spread across the floodplain, splicing into a broad, brown rope of water twisting to the harbour at West Bay.
Contemptuous of its banks, the River Brit was running noisily across meadows, forming new lakes where herring gulls sat floating on its muddy surge. Water went straight through the allotments, sending plastic pots bobbing like buoys against the boundary fence.
The town had the air of a snow day, when the usual shape of things is transformed, plans cancelled and routines suspended. Paths became streams and new islands appeared, sitting oddly in a world of inverted sky.
In the afternoon, the wind picked up again as the last of Storm Chandra roiled over, bringing an early dusk and a smattering of hail. High over the houses, a pair of ravens chased and tumbled, their black shapes flung against grey clouds, the rain sweeping sideways to erase them from view like the slide on a child’s magnetic drawing board.
The next day, the floods were gone. Where gulls had paddled, crows picked methodically over flattened grass in search of dead worms. Between clouds, the sky was washed the pale, bright blue of a starling’s egg. In place of the frenetic ravens, a buzzard glided in stately circles, scanning for carrion.
Apart from the water’s retreat, the most noticeable difference was the sound. Drier, slightly warmer conditions had enticed the birds to sing. A green woodpecker’s yaffling calls echoed early in the woods above, while in our garden, a dunnock started his creaky-squeaky warble, followed by the brief, hesitant mumble of an overwintering blackcap, which was not at all convinced that winter is over.
But the day belonged to the small flocks of house sparrows that gathered in clumps of scrub, loudly cheeping and chirruping to each other as they hopped and flittered among the twigs. Habituated to living alongside people, they will let you get close enough to observe in detail, all the while looking straight back.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com
