Starlings building for the winter murmurations, says Sheffield wildlife expert
Towns like Brighton and Hastings for example, have flocks of starlings on roof-tops, in trees, on telegraph wires, and in shrubberies.
Active, intelligent, gregarious, and above all vocal, starlings are excellent mimics and will copy calls and noises from places and habitats they have recently visited.
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Hide AdI have heard them ‘do’ green woodpecker yaffling, curlew song, and various other wading birds too.
When flocking together, the starlings are constantly communicating with complex mixes of bubbling, buzzing, chipping calls, and screeching at different pitches.
As their numbers grow, the flocks when they put to flight have an amazing ability to fly in tight formation and this is especially so if an avian predator such as a sparrowhawk is in the area.
The flock behaves almost as a single individual to mob and to confuse the would-be predator.
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Hide AdHowever, as numbers at roosts and pre-roost sites grow, in some cases to enormous flocks
of hundreds of thousands of birds, this group behaviour, known as a ‘murmuration’, builds to
a peak.
These are spectacular displays and have developed to become major tourist attractions.
The big numbers often attract predators and the predators in turn trigger ever more dramatic aerial displays from the starlings.
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Hide AdBack in the 1970s and 1980s, there were big concerns in many urban areas as roosting starlings were drawn to the cities’ winter heat-islands and caused fowling of buildings and other nuisances.
Then, probably linked to climate and habitat issues, the numbers dwindled and there were widespread concerns about the conservation status of the starling.
Nowadays it does seem that numbers have recovered for both British breeding birds and for the winter visitors too, and I think they have made a welcome return in many places.