MISE EN SEASON

One of the great things about riding is how aware you are of the landscape you're riding through. All the senses are engaged - you can hear and see everything you can in a car, but you can also smell the fields and plants (a problem in spring and summer, when the pollen count is high).

The A303 is a frustrating road, but currently less so that the M4 for anyone traveling between the South East and South West of England. The A303 specialises in random bottlenecks, when for no obvious reason, the road goes from three lanes to one.

This means one has plenty of time, while weaving through the tailbacks, to observe the scenery (largely fields) and any wildlife immune through custom to the noise and pollution of road traffic.

In early harvest season, like late summer, when the wheat crop has been gathered and the fields are all stubble and haystacks, this means crows. The crow family, of course, is well known to be intelligent for birds. They learn, they problem solve, and lately, they’ve been learning from humans. They were all over the harvested fields, but neatly socially distanced. So: if a group of crows is a murder, what do I call what I saw? A Corvid-19?