A flit of waxwings

Drying lettuce, I stood under dripping skies in the gravel pit out back. And suddenly, marvelously, a flit of cedar waxwings sprang—thirty birds at once—from the tree overhead and curved off and up and then back, landing with a sound like raindrops. They did this, singly, in sixes, all together, again and again until the eucalyptus to the east seized their interest. They are small, crested birds.