6:15. A clear cold sky, the colour of shadows on snow, holds the moon like a half-buried stone. I am sitting on the front step, waiting for a friend. This early in the morning, more cats than cars prowl Summit Street. A calico from next door laps water from the furrows in our driveway. A black cat from two doors down watches me with its eyes askant, mewing. The stars are pins and needles on my ears. I have forgotten my hat, but decide not to go back inside so as not to accidentally wake my roommate. A streetlight flickers fitfully. Soon Matthew rounds the corner, camera in hand. We head down Windsor and North, to the bridge.

Scant traffic until we reach the bridge itself, which is bustling. The pedestrian walkway on the southeast side rises heavily above parked cars and sleeping ships, arching over the harbour. We walk quickly, anticipating sunrise, and watch the Halifax skyline slowly rotate into view. A tripod proves useless, as the pavement shakes constantly with the weight of passing vehicles, but it is light enough now that it is unnecessary anyway. Near the first trestle, the air is voluble with the warble of birds; they have a gathering place under the walkway. We spot a few perched on the side rails and decide they are starlings.

The bridge is not as long as it looks. We are halfway to Dartmouth when the sun brisks up, quick as a wink, lavish as a cat's eye caught in cameraflash. Tapetum lucidum.

As soon as the light hits the starlings let go, with the precision and propensity of acrobats. A troupe of them cascades over salt water, single-minded, synchonized, wings tinged pink by the ruddy sunlight. My fingers are cold and move too slowly. The starlings are a fast cloud, cirrus uncinus, flurried and ephemeral. Somewhere between my eye and the sun they splinter and are never seen again, suddenly invisible, like a handful of sand tossed in water. Like fireworks, or a meteor shower. Like stars or fireflies at first light, like a cheshire cat, like a soap bubble popped. Like pins and needles, like gooseflesh, like freckles only visible when you've been in the sun. Like light in your eyes or water in your ears. Like every sunrise you've ever slept through.

"I think perception is a strange thing, much stranger than we think. These swifts... they live five times faster than us. We must be like cold statues to them."
· Graham Dorrington, in Werner Herzog's The White Diamond