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Meditations in nature: birds of a feather flock together

Each winter, I look forward to visiting the Somerset Levels to watch one of Britain’s largest starling murmurations and the season’s most spectacular wildlife event.  The weather today is sunny and calm, providing the perfect conditions for the birds to perform their aerial ballet.  Although there are no guarantees that I will see them, I am hopeful that I will witness a quarter of a million starlings gather from all corners of Somerset to roost over the Avalon marshes.

As the last vestiges of sunlight drop through the reeds, I make my way to the hide by the lake to settle down and await the display.  It is not long before I can just make out what looks like faint clouds of smoke on the horizon; these are the first flocks to arrive.  Then more and more appear, merging from all directions, until eventually, they are right above me; the sudden whooshing sound of wing beats making me cower.

Only a few minutes later over the distant trees, I see them begin their synchronized, shape shifting show.  It is utterly mesmerizing. Columns of birds rise in unison to a crescendo, twisting like black ribbons and swirling like lava lamp clouds. Totally transfixed by their unified aerial acrobatics, I wonder why they are expending so much energy before nightfall.  No one really understands the purpose of a murmuration, but it is thought that they come together to get warm, share feeding information and ward off predators.

Seeing a starling murmuration, or indeed the starlings in your garden, might make you think that these birds are numerous.  But sadly, this is not so. They are on the red list having declined 68 per cent in 25 years due to pesticides and loss of grasslands. The ones that are here, forming these huge murmurations, will contain some of our breeding birds, but the vast majority are migrants escaping the bitter cold in western Russia and Eastern Europe.

As the sunset deepens, the final drop to the roost commences.  It is as though someone has pulled the plug out of the sky allowing a black wave of birds to fall en masse down to the reeds below.  There is much jostling as the birds vie for the best position.  The roost will be restless and noisy for hours.

Walking back to my car under a darkening, tangerine sky, I am grateful for these rather taken for granted, sociable birds, for they have made an ordinary day truly remarkable.

Dr Susie Curtin
curtin.susanna@gmail.com

Photo by Glenn and Sarah Bowden: starlingsintheuk.co.uk

Photo by Glenn and Sarah Bowden: starlingsintheuk.co.uk

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