Whatever your holiday, if you have one just now, join me in celebrating the amazing things that starlings do at this time of year.
Starlings gather at dusk and if the conditions are right they create amazing airborne patterns before they settle into the trees and roost together. The roosting’s for safety, for warmth, and (the experts swear) to exchange information on where the good food is. The murmurations may be to confuse predators.
Starlings also gather for shorter times during the day, condensing onto power lines, where they pack themselves together wing to feather. So tightly, in fact, that they’ve caused the occasional power outage in the Scottish town of Airth. So many gathered on the lines, and they settled and took off in such a mass, that their weight made the wires bounce, shutting down the power, sometimes for seconds and sometimes longer.
No wonder. There are so many of them. I wonder how many.
It’s a beautiful sight.
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Numbers beyond my ability to guess. They’re really amazing to watch, and during this year people are lining up like the audience at a play.
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I was thinking, maybe you read somewhere. You always know lots of facts.
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Since I started blogging, I look lots of stuff up. The sad part is that very little stays with me. My memory’s so full of holes it looks like those snowflakes people put on their windows.
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I hear you.
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Merry Christmas. Amazing photod
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And a good Christmas to you. I’ll pass the compliment along.
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😊
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Merry Christmas. I think it was starlings I saw a couple of mornings ago just after dawn. There was a whole host of them and I was trying to get “The Birds” out of my head all the way home.
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I’m so glad I never saw that movie. I hate being scared and I refuse to pay for someone to scare me.
A merry Christmas to you as well. All my best.
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Still one of your biggest fans Ellen, and this is another great vlog…you are inspirational. Wishing you and yours a happy and peaceful Christmas, and all the best for 20021 xxxxxx
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Thanks so much. And all the good wishes back to you. May 2021 bring an end to the virus.
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Still one of your biggest fans Ellen…you are inspirational. Wishing you and yours a happy and peaceful Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year xxxxxx
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And to you–with an emphasis on healthy. Stay well. We’ll get through this.
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Great photos! Never seen a murmuration and would love to! Merry Christmas to you and yours!
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They’re amazing, but they don’t do the full acrobatic thing every time. As far as we can figure out, it has to do with whether there are raptors to confuse.
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i’ve never seen them, but always wanted to. How stunning.
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If you ever get a chance–. They don’t always do the acrobatics. Sometimes they just settle in. Our best theory is that it has to do with predators. If one’s present, they do all that stuff to confuse them.
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That’s interesting. And they only do this at dusk!? Because I have certainly seen bird formations like this at dawn (driving the country roads to work) but I would never know if they were starlings or something else :)
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I think they do it at dawn as well, although I’m not sure it lasts as long. Someone who lives near the area where they like to roost said they tend to lift off all at once. It’s beautiful, but in the evening they come in separate groups–some of them like rivers, so it happens over and over again.
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They don’t form murmurations at dawn. In the mornings they all begin to chatter and stir on their roosts and when someone throws the invisible switch, they take off in three, huge, consecutive groups. It is quite a sight, but nothing to compare with a murmuration when flock after flock fly and blend with the whole.
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Beautiful photos, Ellen. Merry Christmas!
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I’ll pass the compliment to the photographer. Thanks.
Stay well, and a good Christmas to you as well.
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We used to see them morning and evening in France, heading for the town at night and out again in the morning, in ever shifting formations. Just one evening they landed in our grounds…every branch full, the ground covered…they took off again in the morning, gathering together overhead then, as one, they turned with a clap like a ‘plane beating the sound barrier and were gone.
Compliments of the season to you…I do enjioy your blog!
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Wow. I wish I’d seen that. We did once walk through the trees where they roost, but we clearly disturbed them and haven’t done it since–although I’m still tempted.
Have a good holiday, and stay well.
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Merry Christmas! I used to live in western Ohio in a small college town called Ada. Every fall we would get a starling show. Great flocks would pass and form these flowing shapes. Something from my childhood that I will never forget.
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What a wonderful thing to grow up with!
Wishing you a good Christmas.
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And in my end of Ohio (near Akron) ours finally did leave and fly south – good thing as today there is 8 inches of snow and a high of 20 F.
Is Brexit solved ?
Hope your Christmas was safe and merry.
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“Solved” is too strong a word, but we have a last-minute agreement. I have no idea what it says, and at this point I doubt many people do., but it should stave off the worst chaos, leaving us only with lower-grade chaos.
It still has to be approved by both sides.
Christmas was good, thanks, and I hope yours was as well.
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I’ve never seen starlings doing their thing. Would love to. Merry Christmas from Minnesota. Our brown grass got covered by a snowstorm on the 23rd, just in time…
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I’ve been hearing about the storm. Sounds like a real one. We walked down to the beach today and on the way back saw the first wild primroses in bloom. I can’t believe what we’re getting away with here! Have a good Christmas. Drive careful.
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Amazing! I love nature…
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They really do leave me with my jaw hanging open.
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I love it when birds swarm like this.
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It’s amazing.
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So amazing!
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They are. Or it is. I’m not sure which direction to come at that from. Both, I guess.
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