This happened in early December but I am only just writing about it now as I finally have a new laptop that actually works!
David and I went to see a starling murmuration at
Attenborough Nature Reserve last year. It was my first one and it was amazing!
We couldn’t see much due to a huge oak tree, but what we could see was impressive.
Loads of people gathered on the banks of the River Trent, watching loads of
birdies, hoping we didn’t get pooped on (I didn’t get pooped on but I can’t
speak for anyone else!)
We had a few days off last year and David had found another murmuration, a huge one!, in Shropshire and we decided to go and see it. Some
of the pictures on Twitter have been incredible due to the sunsets in the background
and the THOUSANDS and thousands of starlings in front. Absolutely incredible!!
So off we went – we drove up to Fenn’s, Whixall & Bettisfield Mosses, and
with my printed off map we went on a little walk while we waiting for the sun
to go down. It was quite chilly cold so I was well wrapped up with all of my
handmade woollens! We walked a short way along the canal before turning into
the Mosses. It was a fairly simple, square, route over flat ground, but it was
very wet and boggy in paces – cuz ya know, it’s a bog.
When I did chainsaw
training back in 2016, the other lady in the group was a Ranger at this site
and she showed us lots of pictures of her getting the machinery stuck up to the
axle in the bog. Sometimes the buggy was at a 45° angle with its rear end in
the air!
We saw some cows and we met some dogs, and I trod in a very
big slippy cow poop, and we still had some time to kill before the starlings
were due to murmur. So we went and sat in the car for a bit, and then we walked
down the lane a bit where people with big cameras had started to gather, and
then David went and moved the car, and then we sat in the car again, and then I
got out and watched some long tailed tits dancing through the hedgerows, and
then it rained so I got back in the car, and then more people suddenly appeared,
so we decided to get out and get a front row spot at the gap in the hedge.
 |
| Morris' Bridge |
We saw lots of little groups of starlings, maybe 30-40
birds. These started to join together and then they’d disappear behind the
trees and then come back, then more small groups would appear. At some points
there were 3 or 4 clusters of starlings flying around, but then a huge flock
would fly overheard and join the throng. This happened a few times, and before
we knew it, there was tens of thousands of starlings!! A man from the local
Wildlife Trust was there, and I heard him telling someone that they usually see
around 60,000 starlings here. SIXTY THOUSAND!! That’s a lot of poop.
It was so cold holding my phone up to film them moving, the
wind was biting on my fingertips but I persevered. On some of the photos it is quite
hard to see the birds due to the way the light shines, but in others it’s like
a black cloud in the sky. It is so cool to see! Very fluid and liquid-like as
they move and react.
It’s fair to say that this was the best starling murmuration
we’ve seen (out of the two that we have!) and I hope we see another one next
winter. On the way home we dropped into a pub and had a roast dinner – yummy yummy
in our cold chilly tummies!
