Murmurations

 For several years we have had a season when the starlings flock on dusk. They start to collect in the bare trees around our section and they sit there singing very loudly (that's them looking like dead leaves at the top of the trees in the first picture. They continue to talk loudly to one another until the moment when they all of a sudden go quiet. Next thing you hear a whirr of their wings as they take off as one group and swoop around the sky looking like a school of fish before landing in the trees again to start singing. They do this several times as stragglers arrive then they suddenly seem to decide that is enough and they head down to the leafy trees where they roost for the night.

This swooping of a group of birds is called a murmuration and I find it mesmerising to watch. The sense of busyness as they are all arriving and singing loudly as if they are talking to each other and catching up on the gossip of the day. Then someone must give the signal and they all swoop together as one. They make no sound as they are flying and all you can hear is the beating of their wings. 

It is not really known why they do this. I think it is a way of bonding together (and maybe doing a roll call...) before settling in for the night. I always laugh at the late arrivals that come flying in form different directions like the naughty teenagers past curfew hoping to slip in unnoticed. 

We haven't seen them for the last couple of years as they have been doing it somewhere else in the district but to my delight they're now back. The murmuration I've captured here is not as amazing as we've seen in the past but still great to watch. (If you want to see amazing ones check out Youtube.