Category: Aviation

Winged Grace: Murmurations by da-AL

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Murmuration: A flock of starlings.

I call a flock of starlings Supreme Grace — ballet, music, and nature soaring amid limitless sky.

Murmuration of starlings over a field
From National Geographic’s “Flight of the Starlings”

Yesterday while I was driving, stopped at a traffic light, I held my breath as I found myself gazing at a flock of birds dipping and soaring, looping and circling again and again.

I went online to find out why and how they do it, only to get more questions than answers. There was this about when they do v-formations, but little about their swirly kind of flying in flocks. No one knows whether each bird is flying solo, trying not to hit each other while capitalizing on safety in numbers, or whether they’re truly focused on unity.

Three short videos of starling murmurations I thought you’d enjoy…

Guest Blog Post: “12 Beautiful Travel Quotes,” in A.M. Sanders’ exact words

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"Adventure is Worthwhile in Itself" Amelia EhrhardtNothing connects us more thoroughly than the face-to-face connection of travel. What a super fun political action! …

Ōrphic Flux

Travel has always opened my mind to fresh ideas and opportunities, new friends and different places, all overflowing with life, love, and memories. There is so much wonder and beauty out there to discover.

I hope these quotes inspire a wanderlust inside you that will take a lifetime of adventures to satisfy.

  1. “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalía de Castro

2. “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” – Amelia Earhart

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3. “It is better to travel alone than with a bad companion.” – African Proverb

4. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

5. “Experience, travel – these are as education…

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Guest Blog Post: “My Mum, the Pilot,” in Hey Loons exact words

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I love true stories about courageous women, don’t you? Enjoy this thanks to fellow blogger Hey Loons …

Hey Loons

Once upon a time, a little girl was told that women shouldn’t fly airplanes …

I grew up knowing ‘mum flew planes’. This was one of a series of simple facts in my childhood: my sister and I were born in London; our parents came from India; dad sang; mum flew.

She told us stories about her teenage flying days ‘looping the loop’ above the clouds and performing steep dives towards the ground. She’d show us her album filled with old sepia photos of her standing proudly next to a small airplane.

The logbook pages had rows of handwritten entries of all her flights, each a flying adventure and she spoke about them with excitement and emotion, tinged with a hint of longing to be up amongst the clouds again.

Our mum, Dhira Chaliha, got her flying wings in 1961, at the age of 21, in India and to us as…

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