It’s a late October afternoon and autumn is in its glorious full flush of colour. The weather is turning increasingly wet, although temperatures are still mild. Where I live in Southern England the rain through autumn and winter is relentless and the underlying clay in this area makes the ground very boggy, with the consequence that mud becomes an increasingly big part of my life – mostly trying to keep it outside where it belongs. I have taken an opportunity, before the light fades, and before the mud becomes all-pervasive, to come outside and start on a multitude of autumn garden jobs.
I am serenaded by a small group of starlings1, probably thirty or so, perching on my tv aerial and those of my neighbours. Their clicks, trills and whistles form a continuous background to a trickling stream of robin song. They sit very close together, like a choir, and though there are aerials free of birds they choose to bunch together on just a few. Occasionally from time to time one or two jump from their perches and fly in a small circle around their group before landing again. They are enthusiastic singers, their throats bulging and bills wide as they throw themselves into the performance. Suddenly, at some invisible signal, they all erupt from their perches at once in a small feathery explosion, and begin to dance an aerial ballet. In unison they whirl and twist in circles and figures of eight, still singing, with the thrumming of their wingbeats forming a basenote to their chorus. They move as one over my head, dipping and swirling, directed by an unseen choreographer. Periodically they return to the aerials, only to return to the sky again a few seconds later. I am entranced, garden jobs forgotten, and watch them dance until it is nearly dark, when they finally disperse for their night-time roosts somewhere in the surrounding trees.
The delightful event I had witnessed was a ‘murmuration’, albeit in miniature. When I was a child I grew up in a suburb right at the edge of north London, close to Essex. The countryside was not very far away and the estate was very close to some large reservoirs fringed by trees. I remember watching huge murmurations comprising many thousands of birds. In autumn they were a nightly entertainment seen from my bedroom window. Starlings were very common then. During the day twenty or thirty could be found poking around the lawns at the front and back of the house. For some reason my father hated them and would bash on the windows to scare them away. He probably wasn’t aware that they were doing him a favour by eating the ‘leatherjackets’2 chewing on the grass’s roots. I would watch the starlings probe the grass with their stout beaks. Probe, probe, probe, got one!
They are not commonly liked, but I don’t know why. Their handsome dark, glossy plumage, speckled with white dots, shines with a green/blue iridescence in the sunshine. They are clever mimics and their song is peppered with samplings of other birds’ voices. However, they are bold, walk with a confident swagger rather than cutely hop, and arrive at the bird table in mobs, which is probably why they are not generally popular3.
Large murmurations are comparatively rare events now and birdwatchers from all over the world come to see them at specific places where they still occur. Once so very numerous, sadly starlings are on the decline. Although still considered common in Britain their sharp decline since the 1980s has meant that they are now a IUCN Red listed species in the UK4.
So, I was lucky to see this ‘mini murmuration’. There are sound evolutionary reasons for the behaviour, but I like to think that they danced through the simple joy of living.
2024
1Sturnus vulgaris.
2Leatherjacket is the colloquial name for the larva of the crane-fly (Tipula paludosa), clouds of which could be found flitting around the long grass in late summer and autumn, and of which I was terrified!
3In the 1970s popular poet Pam Ayres wrote an affectionate poem about them called, ‘We’re Starlings, the Missis, Meself and the Boys’.
4The International Union for Conservation of Nature (2023) lists them as of least concern but declining.
Nature Matters 