BIRDS AND TREES were made for each other. Birds, in migration, make motions in masses as if they were a single unit. I strive to be as perfect as a bird with my boys. When there's a decision to rest they know it as if one and pull over onto a tree with the right number of branches all with terrible, telepathic unity. When it's time to alight, again they take flight. I saw a tree swallow a hundred birds today so that rest could occur in its auspice.
There was rain impending, and it was time to hunker down for shelter and relief. There was no reason to forge on in such a deluge.
Sometimes birds just swoop in circles to churn the atmosphere at the onset of a storm. Recognizing their part in the larger chaos, they are prepared to submit to its machinations whenever it sees fit.