Murmuration

[Scully]

Watched a short film of a very impressive murmuration in Italy, and realised the last one I saw was with my Dad, and he’s been dead for 20 years now. Have no idea why I don’t see them nowadays. 
We have a lot of Starlings locally, but obviously not in huge numbers. 
Anyone else still see them? 
 

[London Best]

Not like we used to!

I remember one making the local paper, with pictures. It used to fly right over our house every night. The numbers were estimated by local birders at one hundred thousand birds?? I followed on my push bike to see where they roosted in a wood on a local estate a couple of miles away. This would be circa 1963 I think.

edit: there is still a locally famous starling roost in a reed bed at a nature reserve about eight miles away. There was film on the regional TV news a couple of weeks ago.

Edited November 28, 2023 by London Best

[Mice!]

Cumbria wildlife Trust posted pictures of one the other day but I'm not sure if it was local, I see a small group sometimes near Preston.

[muncher]

They pulled all the orchards up around me and the stubble is gone in a day, no food for them anymore to sustain them through the winter. We used to get massive ones in the fens , not anymore. 

[oowee]

Huge numbers here in Somerset. I don't know if they are larger or smaller than previously but very impressive.  Farmers are still trying to net them out of the barns. 

Interesting that we don't have starlings in the garden and rarely see them otherwise. 

[Spr1985]

The first and last time I saw one (every evening one week) was whilst I was working in the wymondham area of Norfolk in 2012, I pulled over into a farmers field entrance and watched for ages as they dropped into roost. Very bad picture but…..

[old man]

Nope, there was the start of a little mob in a conifer nearby till the occupiers had it felled?

Interestingly many years ago in a localish wood there were supposedly hundreds of thousands from somewhere really cold. The end result, the fire brigade were called in on freezing nights to hoze them down???

[discobob]

There used to be a big one in Swindon - right over the OASIS and BT Northstar - My car got absolutely covered when I had my car for only a day or so from brand new. I was going to wash it when I got back home, however my Dad died the next day, so I had to go there and when we went to the undertakers and was dealing with arranging the funeral, their car guy decided to use a waterless cleaner on the car to get it off - swirls galore on a dark blue car - but hey ho, I had other things on my mind.

Would love to know if that was still happening.

We do have a small one that happens occasionally with them going in trees across at the school

[islandgun]

There are usually about 100 Starlings around my house, but not enough for a murmeration, I do like them for their mad feeding habits, one will fly to a piece of grassland, quickly followed by the rest, then after a probe around, another will move to a fresh bit, quickly followed by the rest. they have the same behaviour at my bird feeders. another thing i noticed when at my old house is that they would fly as fast as possible on a route to their favourite roosting place, this at height of about 7ft, and always over the bit of grass in front of the house. quite a shock for the un prepared. I think they enjoy themselves 

Edited November 29, 2023 by islandgun

[Townie]

I was thinking just that this week when I saw a solitary starling on the pavement. There used to be a huge number in Leicester Square in London, which was quite a sight at dusk.

[Scully]

Starlings nest in our building ( old barn ) and the dogs often startle a holly bush full of them in the orchard, but there’s obviously not enough to create a ‘murmur’! 🙂

It’s a shame as I often stood and watched them as a youth. 
 

[Keith 66]

My parents lived at Crag foot next to Leighton moss nature reserve, Every winter would see big murmurations & people would drive miles to watch them & still do.

It is considered to be one of the biggest gatherings of starlings in the country. But it pales into insignificance to what i saw growing up here in Essex, we lived on the edge of Hadleigh country park & the starlings would flight over our garden in tens of thousands. The flight to the roosts in the woods would go on for over half an hour & they turned the sky dark. In the roosts in the hawthorn scrub the branches would be covered in birds & the floor was 3 inches deep in guano. I have no clue how many there were but they came in from several directions to those woods.

[Mice!]

On again today so it must be local somewhere. 

[figgy]

Used to watch them when I was on the Marsh this time of year. A local tomato producer has acres of glasshouses all lit up and the starlings would murmur above and around, fantastic to watch. 
 

still see the odd murmuring but not as big as they were. 

[discobob]

Runcorn Bridge was another place for it - they used to use it to spend the night - became a bit of a problem and they done something I believe to stop it

[derbyduck]

2 hours ago, discobob said:

Runcorn Bridge was another place for it - they used to use it to spend the night - became a bit of a problem and they done something I believe to stop it

yes I saw them years ago ,I was working at Shell Green on the Widness side of the bridge .

[JKD]

Only place I've ever seen a starling murmuration was back in the mid 80's. Some members will know the location,,,, the top end of Danson Park by Crooklog, SE London. If my memory serves me right, there were quite a few thousand coming in to roost. Amazing to see, but haven't seen a murmuration since then,,,, except on the telly box 😄

[discobob]

50 minutes ago, JKD said:

Only place I've ever seen a starling murmuration was back in the mid 80's. Some members will know the location,,,, the top end of Danson Park by Crooklog, SE London. If my memory serves me right, there were quite a few thousand coming in to roost. Amazing to see, but haven't seen a murmuration since then,,,, except on the telly box 😄

Could that be the Parakeets that have forced them out?

[JKD]

12 minutes ago, discobob said:

Could that be the Parakeets that have forced them out?

No, this was a long time before the green plague turned up in any numbers.

[wymberley]

The ones in Italy - specifically Rome - are causing havoc with their droppings.

We arrived somewhere in deepest Norfolk in the late 80s to beat and while waiting for the off I asked if it had been a cold night pointing to the frost covered wood at the top of a hill. You'll see when we get there later I was told. Not frost but starlings' poo which had totally wiped out the wood. The shoot had been a couple of beaters short and we'd been asked if we could help out so had no idea, but all of the local guys had brought their guns and at the end of the day surrounded the wood and had their fun.

[Yellow Bear]

12 minutes ago, wymberley said:

The ones in Italy - specifically Rome - are causing havoc with their droppings.

We arrived somewhere in deepest Norfolk in the late 80s to beat and while waiting for the off I asked if it had been a cold night pointing to the frost covered wood at the top of a hill. You'll see when we get there later I was told. Not frost but starlings' poo which had totally wiped out the wood. The shoot had been a couple of beaters short and we'd been asked if we could help out so had no idea, but all of the local guys had brought their guns and at the end of the day surrounded the wood and had their fun.

A similar thing happened on the marshes at the top of Langstone Harbour during the foot and mouth epidemic in '67

[manthing]

Uk is one of the few places they are still protected I think. 

[London Best]

3 hours ago, manthing said:

Uk is one of the few places they are still protected I think. 

Protected since 1981.

Shot thousands as a teenager in the 1960’s.

[strimmer_13]

Glastonbury has a few big ones, not that I go, seen millions of the rats. 

When I lived on the preselis, by clock work at about 3.20pm you'd have about 5 swarms within 10mins  go over of about 5000-10000 each all heading Milford/Pembroke dock way. I know a few thousand used to roost up at my mates farm in letterstone, inch deep of bird **** every winter but christ knows where that amount got too.  

[manthing]

23 hours ago, London Best said:

Protected since 1981.

Shot thousands as a teenager in the 1960’s.

I wasn't around the first half of the 60's. 🤣