Sunset Murmurations, or not

Starlings are not the only birds to exhibit the typical starling behaviour of murmurating. At work, and yesterday in Riverside Park, I've been observing similar behaviour, albeit on a smaller scale, by other songbirds.

I think the birds involved are linnets, and they follow the starling pattern of flying around, looking to settle in a tree to roost, only to change their mind at the last minute and fly off again. The flock a work that has been doing in at work is only about 25-30 strong, but the flock, or "parcel" apparently, of linnet I observed doing it yesterday numbered around 200 birds.

They don't make a very good photographic subject for a mobile phone camera, you'll have to make do with the sunset over the river for that, but they are a charming watch, tweeping away as they circle around in a skittish fashion.

I was a very tired boy yesterday, and didn't really get a lot of practice in, but today I've had about two hours of walking done. Hopefully as the weather and light improves I will be able to get three hour walks in most days.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 13.01.20

Murmurations Redux; People versus the Starlings

I noticed in the Newark Advertiser on thursday 28th Feb, that the Lincoln Road, Winthorpe Road area starling murmurations have been a talking point in town for a little while.

The locals are complaining about the noise, and the mess. Apparently some folk have even been shooting rockets into them...

Heaven's sake, one of the most powerful sights nature can provide, for free, on your doorstep, for the first time anyone can remember in that part of town, and all folk can do is complain about a bit of bird mess on their cars, and the tweets and whistlings interrupting their enjoyment of "The Chase" on ITV. Or whatever crucial televisual feast it is that requires bird free concentration at 530pm.

As Spinal Tap would say, I'd be devastated if I wasn't under such heavy sedation.

The Grandest Murmuration

Cycling home from work tonight, struggling on a flattening tyre yet again, I could see them in the far distance even as I entered the badlands of the wasteland cycle path.

Electrons in a cloud chamber...starlings over the KFC.

At times of the year when I'm cycling home in the evening twilight, I'm used to seeing small murmurations along Winthorpe Road and over Macdonalds, and over by the turn onto Northern Road, but this was crazy. It wasn't gaggles of thirty to fifty birds, it was three to five thousand birds in an ever shifting swirl of chaos; a cartoon swarm of hornets making question marks and arrows in the sky; the universe a nanosecond after its creation.

A swarm of birds larger than a football pitch.

Never seen anything like that in any urbanised area before, let alone Newark. It's a sight I shan't forget in a hurry.