Solstice Starlings

I love starling murmurations. Previously, I've only experienced them at nationally well-known sites such as the piers at Aberystwyth and Brighton, or on the Somerset Levels, but this winter they have been gracing my very local North Cave Wetlands - gracing us both in frequency and number, and in the beautiful complexity of their patterns.

Here's a recent extract from my nature journal: 

Another murmuration this evening. A remarkable, beautiful sight as thousands of starlings congregate together, twisting and swirling, making endlessly changing patterns in the darkening skies. Sometimes they move together in one mass, sometimes they split into several smaller groups, repeatedly re-joining each other, separating again, joining again... constantly shifting, twisting and turning around, then swooping back together into one vast moving shape.

starling murmur at North Cave Wetlands - thanks to Liz Newton

Starlings are dark in colour and in such huge groups, look even darker; stunning when backlit by the setting sun and multiple layers of coloured clouds. Any murmuration is wonderful to watch, but this time I was closer than I have ever been to a large murmuration and the birds' movements were so fast as they swooshed over my head, I could feel the air displacement, and hear the sound of thousands of wings beating in unison.

I stood entranced as this continued for ten, fifteen minutes or more, until suddenly - how does this happen? - they simultaneously dropped down into the reedbed. There were so many, it took several seconds: it was as if they were being poured from above, liquidising themselves into the reedbed below.

Have a look at this video - thanks to Sandra Hobson

I hadn't wanted binoculars between me and the experience, but once the birds were all down, I used my bins to watch the reedheads dancing from side to side as the birds busied about, finding their preferred place for the night's roost. 

Finally, as the sky darkened even further, I could no longer see individual birds or reedheads, but I could still hear their chatterings as they settled for the night. I walked home then, but it took me quite some time to settle myself after such an amazing spectacle.

There have been many fabulous photos on the NCW facebook page, and indeed in many other places - they are understandably a popular choice among wildlife photographers. Given the multiple shapes the murmurations can take, there are also some very amusing - though not always re-postable! - configurations, but I will re-post this one from one of last year's murmurations at the Lower Derwent Valley site: when he posted the photo, Richard Baines, the photographer, commented that because of all the starlings, he hadn't noticed the blue tit at first...