The Magic Of Starlings.

 I remember one winters evening when I was a child, walking through an underpass in Romford town centre. The kind of structure beloved of urban planners in the 50s and 60s, dishevelled by the 1980s and 90s of my childhood and youth. I recall reaching an open space at the bottom end of Romford Market, a sort of roundabout for pedestrians, open to the sky and fringed by small street trees. There was a cacophony in the skies, twittering, and the distinct whirring of hundreds of tiny wings. I was in the shadow of an urban murmuration, a big flock of starlings making their way to a communal roost somewhere else in town. I recall even at that young age, fascinated by anything small and flighted, being wonderstruck by this sensational display. Starlings are still common, but when I was a kid a flock of them could darken a grey Romford sky. Not so now. They have declined and become much scarcer since. While murmurations as big and bigger than that one I witnessed circa 1989 and still in single digits, still exist, they are few and far between, and invariably something of an avian tourist attraction, and very seldom in town centres. The Starling’s decline has been rapid, tragic and transformative.

Starlings in Cromer, spring 2022

Starlings are familiar, if not the most popular of garden visitors, I recall my aunt referring to the small bands of starlings which visited her bird table of a winters morning in the 1990s as a ‘raiding party,’ and even today they make short work of the fat balls and sunflower seeds we leave out for them. A pair attempted to nest in the apple tree in the back garden this summer, a glorious, noisy nest in a natural tree hole. They lack the tidy, hygienic practices of Blue Tits and other small passerines, which carefully move the fecal sacs away from the nest to avoid giving away its location. A static waterfall of white bird poo coated the bark beneath the hole. The adults were noisy too, attacking any magpie which landed in the adjacent trees. Sadly, I fear their efforts were not enough to protect their chicks from the big, mean corvids, as the nest fell silent one day, and no brown coated juveniles were seen on the lawn as I had hoped. I believe the garden nest of which I was most proud was not successful.

Starling in Maldon, Essex December 2022

The cause of Starlings’ decline is not known.   Agricultural intensification has led to shortages of food, especially the ‘leatherjacket’ cranefly larvae they particularly enjoy. They are badly affected by environmental pollutants, including medicines in wastewater, where exposed to them, but precise sources of exposure are unclear. Both the wintering, murmuration-forming populations and the resident population, which is highly mobile but not migratory, are in precipitous decline, with various sources pointing to declines of up to 70% since the 1960s, and 51% between 1995-20006.  They remain abundant in the United States, where they were irresponsibly released in the 19th Century, and have since become an invasive species. 

Starlings at a pre-roost gathering in the rigging of a Thames Barge.

But yet, on a winter’s evening on the Somerset Levels, or at Minsmere or Leighton Moss, murmurations in the tens of thousands are still recorded, big wheeling flocks throwing shapes against the cold sunset sky, descending noisily into the reeds, or onto artificial structures- Brighton Pier used to host a famous murmuration, before taking off again in an audible flurry of wings, until eventually, as darkness falls, they settle down, chattering gently to each other, before falling silent until morning, when they rise again in the dawn light, dispersing in small flocks- raiding parties, perhaps- to feed on whatever they can find, probing for invertebrates with the Lapwings in open fields, visiting and emptying your bird feeders, even raiding bins.  The crowd on the promenade sign pictured, from Cromer on the North Norfolk Coast, were eagerly descending on any dropped human food, and making a fuss around the dumpsters behind a chippy.  Individually starlings are beautiful, star spotted, iridescent, especially in the breeding season, when their bills turn from black to yellow and their plumage, with the protective breast feathers worn away over the hardships of winter, reveal a deep iridescence, of blues, greens and purples. Juveniles are solid brown, moulting into winter plumage in unusual patterns- a spangly starling with a brown head, often confusing inexperienced birders. But it is in numbers that they are most spectacular, and sought after, while barely anyone but little child-me looked up as they descended on Romford Market, the roost on the Somerset levels attracted hundreds of eager tourists, watching the Starlings of Bristol and Western Super Mare descend on the whispering reeds of the levels not far from Glastonbury Tour. Families had brought their kids to see them, and photographers brought an arsenal of lenses to capture the strange forms against the sunset. A group of students from Bristol Uni watched admiringly the psychedelic shapes in the sky, while an elderly gentleman with an elderly pair of swift binoculars watched from his mobility scooter. All left grinning along the banks or the muddy canal, to the car park in the dark.

The Otmoor Murmuration

I most recently watched a Murmuration when my partner, Emma and I headed up to Otmoor, the RSPB reserve near Oxford. Even on a grey Monday evening, the anticipation in the air was tangible as the sun briefly appeared through the clouds as it crossed the horizon, briefly flooding the countryside with orange glow before disappearing. We thought, standing in semi darkness, we might have missed the spectacle. However, we needn’t have worried, as the small, oval flocks began to converge in the sky, just above the treeline, merging into each other to form the big murmuration, which flowed in the air, creating strange forms there, ever growing as stragglers came to join it. After a couple of massed passes the starlings began to funnel down into the reeds, The sound, the whirr of wings, even at a distance, make the murmuration a sensory experience. I’ve never heard the sound of a murmuration accurately reproduced in Springwatch or any similar media documentaries, it seems a thing only to be experienced live. They funnelled into the reeds, the flock separating, as if the back end of it needs to wait in a holding pattern behind the disappearing lead birds, flowing back and forth like a liquid wave, until resuming the descent once the first wave had perched up.

The Otmoor Murmuration

Soon the birds had all disappeared into the reeds, though they kept twittering noisily, and one had to wonder what information was being shared down there. After about 20 minutes, something changed, and to our immense surprise, what seemed to be the entire flock took off, leaving the reedbed at speed for something low down on the other side of the path, leaving the reeds outside the hide once again silent.

And singly, they're pretty beautiful too. Starling in Cromer, Norfolk. 

The beauty of a murmuration is incredible. Inspiring. To all. You should probably go and see one. Before it is too late.

I love South Essex

Strolling on West Canvey Marshes this morning, the flat, damp expanse of grazing marshes filling the space between the snaking mud channel of Pitsea creek, and the Canvey Way Avenue of Remembrance, as the A130 becomes when it crosses onto the “island,” and in the shadow of the huge former Coryton Oil Refinery, and its docks, I was struck by something. South Essex, you are flipping beautiful. Never change what you are.

Black Tailed Godwit at West Canvey Marshes

The water on the reserve was high, and there were puddles on the paths. These wet coastal meadows are a typical local habitat, sculpted by centuries of moderately intensive human land use, the coastal grazing marshes. The reserve is still, declare the information boards the RSPB have installed about, a working farm, and cattle graze its lush swards. The pool beside the A130 was attended by busy Black Tailed Godwits, prodding about on its grassy margins, and Lapwings stood on its banks.  The gentle mews of Common Gull, and the whistles of Wigeon, striking ducks with bold yellow stripes on tops of their heads seemed to fill the air, a winter chorus, despite the constant competition from the traffic just a few metres away.   These calls are evocative of the cold winter air, these birds have travelled from distant breeding grounds in Scandinavia, or Siberia, places compared to which these windswept marshes are relatively hospitable winter habitat.

I wander on as a trio of chirping Meadow Pipits fly overhead, more seasonal refugees from the uplands. Stonechats are here too, bold, striking and confiding. Stonechats watch you as you watch them. They seem to keep an eye on the observer, and occasionally take off to snatch one of the few insects still active in late Autumn, from the air or off the ground.  As I neared the next hide I was aware of the sky filling with birds, Godwit, all the ducks, Lapwings, and smaller Starlings, so often seen in the company of Lapwings on South Essex marshes at this time of year, and previously hidden among the long grass, all taking to the air.   Presumably disturbed by all the commotion, a Grey Heron joined them too.  They wheeled and climbed, alarm calls echoing, staying airborne, indicating the presence of an aerial predator. I could not spot one.  In the photographs of the flock the roofs of passing vans on the A130 are visible, but I was not aware of them at the time. This was wild Canvey. I sat down in the hide, and as I did so the birds began to settle again, Wigeon landing on the water en masse in front of me, hundreds of them.  A circling Marsh Harrier seemed too distant to be the cause of their collective alarm. A couple of ducks took off from the other side of the water, and a shape raced toward me across the water. I couldn’t make it out at first but within a few seconds I was eye to yellow eye with a Sparrowhawk. We seemed to hold each others’ gaze for a second as the raptor climbed a little, effortlessly, giving a piping alarm call of its own, and passed over my head, and over the top of the screen, dropping in behind a hedgerow somewhere between where I sat and the Oil Refinery, and was gone from view. I have no regrets about lacking the presence of mind to point my camera at it, that would have deprived me of the eye-to-eye moments I had with the bird, and the breathless, heart racing moment.  I hadn’t recognised the bird at first because its outline was broken by the dead starling in the hawk’s talons. This was a stunning wild predator, in a stunning wild landscape.

Flocking Wigeon, with passing traffic.

Walking down the path, between the hedges, crossing the bridge over the reed beds where a few short weeks ago Natalie and I had been watching the swallows gather to roost before their flight to sub-Saharan Africa, now long gone, I could not help but wonder at this oasis, and the beautiful, underrated part of the country into which it fits, the Estuary England, the South Essex Marshes. Like so many South Essex wildlife sites, West Canvey does not exist separately from the urban and industrial places which surround it, but merges seamlessly with them to form a wider landscape, continuous and stunning and interwoven.  It is not far from Basildon, and is one of a suite of marshes the RSPB helps to look after locally. Here and in the wider area, from Fortress Purfleet, known to the RSPB as Rainham Marshes and sitting West of the Dartford Crossing, to the wintering flocks of Brent Geese and Turnstone which hang around at high tide at the foot of Southend Pier in the East, and Wallasea and Foulness Islands beyond, both noted for their wintering raptors, these sites are settle easily into a landscape shaped by human activity along the river. So many, such as the chalk habitats at Chafford Gorges near Thurrock, once a chalk quarry, or the new invertebrate reserve managed by BugLife at Canvey Wick, home to rare bees and other invertebrates, once an oil refinery, exist on Brownfield sites, shaped by industry, and these industries existed here because of the river, connecting London with the open sea.

Stonechat on Canvey Island

South Essex, I thought, as I became surrounded by the squeaking contact calls of busy long-tailed tits around me, you are bloody gorgeous and I love you. Then I thought, oh look, a Goldcrest.

Pitsea Creek.

The Hala Starling Experience

The last few evenings, on the way home from uni, assuming I’ve coincided my arrival with the fading light, I have had the honour of what I can only describe as the Hala Green Starling Experience.  Hundreds, or thousands, of the birds have taken to roosting in the bushes which separate our gardens from those of the houses which back on to us, and, morning and evening, their flocks arrive and depart. When I was a kid I clearly remember walking with my dad and watching murmurations of starlings blackening the sky in Romford. The birds would roost in the trees which grew out of the roundabout, the junction of underpasses outside the library.  This must have been the late 1980s or very early 1990s, and birds change their distributions, and now, as far as I’m aware, spectacular murmurations in Metropolitan Essex are pretty much unknown. The Starling has declined in numbers by something like 70% since then, and murmurations do not happen over metropolitan Essex any more. 

Over suburban Lancaster, however, the situation seems to be rather different. There have been some huge flocks these past few days, I cannot hazard a guess as to how many birds were involved, but it must have been in the thousands, cloud-like flocks twisting and changing shape, the birds moving in close formation, coming in through the darkening sky, making several passes of the roosting bushes, a few individuals dropping out and perching there. A sparrowhawk at one point landed on one of the bushes into which they’d been flying and put some of the starlings up. Those deeper in the branches, presumably feeling protected by their enclosed position. The hawk went after those in flight, which swiftly joined the murmuration.  It went in for an attack and the birds avoided it, in a coordinated formation, a burst of speed moving like a wave through the flock. The predator seemed to manage to grab one, and was off pretty quickly.

Despite the paintwork on my car appearing to pay the price of these spectacular murmurations, it feels like something of an honour to watch such a wildlife spectacle over my home of an evening.  They continue chattering in their roost sites well into the night, especially if disturbed. Starlings generally behave like this only in winter, and the flock may have included birds which bred over a wide area, perhaps many of them breeding beyond these shores. Their murmurations are unpredictable, they may use one site for several nights in a row, and then, perhaps in response to weather or feeding conditions, they are not seen there for some time. Certainly, come the spring they will disperse again to their breeding habitats, and will perhaps disperse or move elsewhere long before that, but for the past few days the Hala Green Starling Experience has been a wonderful, and nostalgic, suburban wildlife spectacle!

Species Involved: European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)

Leighton Moss

Looking at the grey sky, I am afraid I failed to rise with the lark this morning and get to the RSPB’s reserve at Leighton Moss as the Sun came up, but I did make my way to my new local big RSPB reserve this afternoon.  I arrived under the bluest sky I have seen since I arrived in the North West. The leaves on the trees up here have already started turning, leaving me feeling like I had lost a couple of weeks off the end of Summer somewhere on the M6, and despite some sunshine yesterday, it has rained continuously since the day after I arrived, albeit with rainbows.

The downpours which have afflicted the North of England in recent weeks will not have gone unnoticed given all the flood warnings. Here in Lancaster I am fine, it has rained incessantly bar two days since my arrival but when I reached Leighton Moss I was a little disappointed to find that I was only able to view half of the reserve as some of the paths had become flooded. I left the visitors centre and took the opportunity to glance at the feeding station which sits outside it. There was a large amount of Passerine activity, with chaffinches and greenfinches alongside a less familiar Marsh Tit and a number of scruffy juvenile Bullfinches. One young male Bullfinch appeared to be gaining his distinctive and instantly recognisable salmon-pink breast in awkward patches. Badger-striped coal tits were here in number, and Mallards, these ones now well past their ‘eclipse’ and regaining their adult plumage, pottered about on the ground picking up the dropped seed from the feeders.

Coal Tit at the Feeding Station.

Scruffy young bullfinch, a stark contrast with the very smart adults.

After a few attempts to photograph some of the passerines, a task made all the more difficult by the positioning of the feeders under a thick woodland canopy, I headed on to the first hide,  called Lillian’s Hide, and from it, a large structure with a wide bay window affording good views across the lake, and was able to get a feel for the reserve. I was there with few expectations, and had been expecting to find a “moss,” that is, a Sphagnum bog, of the type so threatened by peat extraction, and was surprised to find a lowland wetland of much more familiar character.  Leighton Moss is described as the largest reed bed in the North West, and is a combination of Phragmites reed-swamp with scattered clumps of Typha, with its thick dark seed heads, popularly called Bullrush, and open water, fringed by (very) wet woodland, with wooded hill slopes climbing away. It lies in or close to the Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the elegantly curvaceous landscape is certainly beautiful. I was surprised to see, given the autumnal character of the last few days, that there were still dragonflies on the wing. Migrant Hawkers patrolled above the reeds. Some of the people in the hide were discussing Otters which had apparently been seen the same morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so persistent with that snooze button.   Outside were no more than the usual suspects-coots, some scruffy Tufted Ducks, the males now moulting out of their eclipse plumage, brown and patchy with white flanks, a moorhen or two, and the obligatory mallards. I stayed to enjoy the landscape for a bit, and watch a late Red Admiral butterfly fluttering about,  but the lack of interesting birds drove me on.

RSPB Leighton Moss.

I walked along the path toward the next hide, called the Public Hide, presumably because it sits on a public footpath to Leighton Hall, passing on the way a patch of open grass and a view of the reserve. The reed swamp certainly looked expansive. I continued through a Carr woodland rich in bird calls, and Goldcrests, to the main path through the reedbeds to the hide. I found myself wading uncomfortably through water several centimetres deep, and very cold, but stuck to the path and persevered.   A sign advertised grit trays supposedly frequented by the UK’s most Northerly population of Bearded Tits, but none of these charismatic denizens of thick reed beds were out today. Another advertised Bitterns, but only a beautiful family of mute swans, dabbling about in the sunshine, were to be seen in the patch of open water I looked out upon. Above me a buzzard circled. I might have missed it but for the friendly couple with pleasant local accents who pointed it out, along with the distinct absence of bearded tits, which they suggested might be in Africa. I replied that they might equally be at Purfleet. No bearded tits, but I took a moment to enjoy the sight of a large bird of prey circling on thermals above the beautiful Lancashire countryside.

Mute Swans near the Public Hide.

The view from the public hide was not much better than the first, again with Mute Swans, Mallards, Coots and Tufties. Not fancying further wading along the flooded paths, it was with a sense of mild disappointment that I made the return trudge through the freezing water.  As I re-entered the Carr woodland I was in for a pleasant surprise. A flock of small birds was moving though, paying particular attention to one Elder bush. This was one of the big gangs of mixed passerines foraging together and taking advantage of safety in numbers through the Autumn and Winter.  They are said to tolerate each other for this reason-while each species has a subtly different diet to the others. Goldcrests foraged frenetically among the yellowing leaves, and long tailed tits contact-called to each other. Blue tits and coal tits hung upside down from the tips of branches, and Treecreepers wound their way up the stems.  Great tits paused before disappearing into the depths of the vegetation, and smart Chaffinches and Greenfinches perched boldly and openly on the lower branches.   As I stood enjoying the spectacle of all these birds around me, yet more species piled in. A very handsome, boldly striped male Siskin appeared before disappearing among the elders’ leaves. A bird I enthusiastically called as a Garden Warbler turned out to be a female Blackcap.  I am certain I have never seen a fraction of this number of goldcrests in one place before, even in sheltered southern woodlands on snowy days.  A Marsh tit was also briefly visible. An older couple also stood enjoying what the RSPB might describe as a “moment,” and they told me they had seen a Willow Warbler in the flock as well.  We were surrounded by tiny passerines. In all the flock seemed to contain no less than 11 species, including the ten I had seen and the friendly couple’s Willow Warbler.  A Robin appeared and made angry noises toward the other passerines, and as soon as the show had begun, it was over, the distinct shapes of two Long-tailed Tits were briefly silhouetted against the sky through a gap in the branches appeared as stragglers, as the flock moved on to new bushes deeper in the woods and further from the path.  I don’t know whether the chirpy but highly territorial Robin had actually chased the whole flock away, but he seemed content to have his bush to himself again.

Very nervous coot.

I continued my return journey to Lillian’s hide.  There were a few Siskins feeding on the Birch which hangs over the hide. Inside the view was a little more interesting than before, and I hung on for a while in the hope of seeing some otter action. None was forthcoming, but a handsome, and very well camouflaged Snipe offered a rare photo opportunity, as it probed about in the  mud where some of the reeds had been cut, in search of invertebrate prey.  A very handsome Grey Heron stood silently and solemnly on one of the islands, eventually tucking his head away under one wing and roosting there. A single Little Egret flew over. I was surprised to see the small white heron so far north just a few decades after its rapid invasion of the country, I thought of them as a Southern thing.  A Gadwall, a male smart in his fresh breeding plumage, swam by, allowing me to add another water fowl to my list. As I enjoyed the view, I saw a number of Mallards take off in the back of my view. The coots instantly fell silent. One moment ago they had been splashing about, calling, bickering with each other, and diving for weeds. Now they swam quickly, some of them running on the water, onto the island, where they stood tensely among the reeds staring fixedly across the water. I followed their gaze. A Marsh Harrier was quartering over distant reeds, wings raised in a shallow V, with gold around her face and the leading edges of her wings. She settled into a bush across the water, where she remained as long as I did. I waited a while, fruitlessly, in the hope of meeting my first English otter, and eventually the tension among the coots subsided and some of the bolder ones ventured back into the water, still clearly aware of the deadly predator on the other side of the water. 

Very handsome and obliging Snipe.

I took a walk back to the RSPB visitors centre for a swift cup of coffee, and then took another look at the feeders.  I could hear the low, throaty bellowing of Red Deer stags in the distance, an enthralling and unfamiliar sound to this Southerner.  A handsome cock Pheasant strutted up and down beneath them. A brown passerine on one of the feeders was revealed to be a Redpoll, another less familiar species. Its body was brown and heavily streaked, with a small red cap on its forehead.   Passerine numbers were down on this morning, perhaps the fading light, and failing weather, it had begun spitting again, had seen some of them off to roost. I watched the antics of some of the remaining birds for a while, there was still a Marsh tit about, before I decided to jump in the car and try to reach the other end of the reserve. The RSPB land straddles a railway line, and to reach the other side I had to drive up in the direction of Silverdale and over a level crossing, then take a right turn after crossing a bridge. Inevitably, I got completely lost and spent several minutes trying to find the place. When I did, and I never got as far as the two Salt marsh hides, which overlook the edges of Morecambe Bay, I discovered Leighton Moss had one more trick up its sleeve to really impress me.

Pheasant at the feeding station.

I drove up the gravel track, having found it eventually, and stopped behind another driver who was looking up at the starlings, which had gathered in some number on the telephone wires which hung between two poles each side of the road, framing a small railway bridge and the sunset behind them. Every couple of minutes a small group of Starlings would arrive from somewhere and jostle for position with the birds which had already arrived. The gentleman in the other car passed me and remarked he was off to get his camera, the starlings had arrived. He departed down the road. Not long after he left, a larger flock appeared, and, as if at a signal, they combined with the flock on the wires and ascended into the sky. At first a disorganised mass of birds, a shape moving low over the reeds appeared to cause them to transform. All at once the edges of the flock became sharply defined, each bird apparently moving as part of some combined whole. They moved quickly, sharply, and as one dived into the reeds. A few moments later the chattering started, and the dark shape rose up and away headed for the hills. It was a fat dark shape, a ball of muscle, a clenched fist of a bird, between pointed wings. I recorded it as a male Peregrine, as it slipped out of site. I waited a few moments listening to the chattering in the reeds. A few pied wagtails flew low over the tops of the reeds as Cormorants passed inland over my head, and a fine rain began to fall as the light continued to fade, the sunset burning a deep yellow-orange, a gap in the cloud fringing the horizon. Lapwings flew down off the slopes, perhaps from further inland, in a flock, toward some protected saltmarsh roosting site. The gentleman with the other car returned with his camera, and was a little disappointed to find himself with only a noisy reed bed to point it at.  A distance away a Marsh Harrier put up small flocks of starlings, rising out of the reeds like puffs of smoke. We both looked at it through the binoculars and enjoyed the presence of a splendid raptor.   The next predator to appear, the starlings saw before we did. First, the noisy chattering of the birds stopped, and then, with a roar like the ocean, like waves breaking on a shingle beach, the starlings in the reeds took flight. The murmuration twisted, a single dark shape composed of what must be hundreds of birds, above the reed bed. Assigning a number of birds to them would have been impossible.  The predator, a juvenile Sparrowhawk which only briefly passed through our field of view, continued on its way and must have cleared the area quite quickly, as the starlings dived down into the reeds in a single column. They fell silent but the sound of the birds’ wings in unison was probably the most memorable feature of the spectacle.  Eventually the chattering resumed, and we watched the sky fill not with dense flocks of starlings but a more diffuse flock of hirundines, shortly, surely, to be on their way back to Africa in pursuit of bugs and summer.  Loosing the light, I headed home, with the word "murmuration" and the sound of hundreds of starling wings in my ears.

Murmuration.