Last week, during my daily commute back home, I happened upon this wonderful spectacle: a murmuration of starlings. Over the next few days I managed to capture several movies on my Smartphone.
One has to marvel at how they manage to avoid each other in the melee as dusk fast approaches, with the flock throbbing and pulsing like a living entity. The most spectacular instance was watching a sparrow hawk periodically sally forth from a nearby tree and into the flock, causing it to split savagely as they sought to avoid becoming a late night snack.
I have always been fascinated by grand displays of nature and this time of the year murmurations rank right up there with the best. Rivalling the pink oceans of flamingos that gather in their thousands in the Gulf of Mexico, our lesser known cousins are (in my opinion at least) far more majestic with their sweeping aerial ballets. So in a big fat “Up yours” to the snobby and somewhat pompous flamingos, I give you the streetwise local boys – our very own British starlings.
