UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35534081

Simply amazing sight - poetic, thrilling, quite wonderful

In reply to Greenbanks:

sadly starlings get bad press in the agricultural community; I think they're great & cheerful characters and here - evidence of their aerial skill and social behaviour - gregarious as the books say; I don't suppose anyone will credit them with a sense of play - which crow family (ravens, choughs ... ) certainly exhibit ??

In reply to LeeWood:


Why?

In reply to Greenbanks:
Startling!




That is genuinely amazing though.

In reply to Rob Parsons:

a whole load of 'the natural world is at odds with human success' -

descending in flocks of 1000's they eat cherries, leave toxic droppings, break trees, eat animal feed and vector diseases

a more circumspect regard will point out that they also eat wireworms and other pesty soil dwellers

quite apart from currently noted entertainment value

In reply to Greenbanks:

I've seen some beautiful murmurations of Starlings over Hastings pier, usually at sunset, over the years but sadly they have become less frequent in recent years.

In reply to Greenbanks:

Those displays are stunning. I really need to visit one of areas where they gather in such numbers since only seen smaller ones personally.
Starlings are beautiful individually as well when seen close up. The colours are just stunning.

In reply to LeeWood:

Interesting stuff - do you have any refs on this that I could be pointed to?
Cheers

In reply to KevinD:


There is a lovely photo of an individual starling in this gallery: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35476291

If I were channeling Chris Packham, I might nit-pick about the greenery behind the bird detracting from its impact. But it's still a smashing picture. You can see the pale tips to the feathers which give the bird its speckles when it's not fluffed up.

In reply to Greenbanks:

Wikipedia discusses 'human interactions'.

They're certainly not a problem here in the Pyrenees foothills - prob just when they get into those gregariously huge flocks. I've noted annual presence of a starling family in an old ash tree by the river.

The only bird which has a pest value on our land are the great-tits - which (along with the fieldmice) tuck into my ripening sweetcorn; the +ve side of this is - they do it only when the crop is ripe - my cue for harvest

In reply to Greenbanks:



Starlings used to be on the general license - ie. You could shoot them if they were being a pest, without having to apply for a specific licence. This was revoked in 2005.

Not all farmers were happy about this, despite Starling number falling.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=starling+general+licence

eg. http://forums.shootinguk.co.uk/showthread.php?3656-Licence-for-shooting-Sta...


I live down the road from Lee, in the Pyrenees.
I haven't seen the great murmurations this year, but I always have a good flock turn up in the autumn to feast on the figs that we leave for them, and then the persimmon in the winter.
As well as being acrobats in the sky they are vocal artists too. In the past I have heard people complain about noisy starlings, but in my experience they are very lyrical and great mimics too.

In reply to Martin W:


That is nice. It amazes me just how colourful they are at close range.

In reply to Rob Parsons:


I think it is mainly because in some areas the starlings have large roosts in barns, this causes problems with contaminated feed and feed meant for animals being eaten by starlings. I love the sound of them flying over me to their feeding grounds, but also recognise why one of my neighbours might be less pleased (as I watch the starlings all disappear into his barn for the night).

In reply to interdit:


When I was a kid, we used to live a few doors down from a consultant surgeon who worked at the local hospital. He had an electronic outdoors ringer for his phone* for his on-call days, in case an urgent call came through while he was in the garden. One of the local starlings learned to mimic the outdoor ringer exactly, and used to drive him mad by forcing him to go in to the house to 'answer' the phone on sunny afternoons!

Apparently they do this sort of thing as a form of sexual display rather than deliberately to taunt humans, vocal ability being an attractive characteristic in a male starling.

* Landline only in those days, and Post Office Telephones had the monopoly on provision of all domestic telephone equipment!