{"id":3788,"date":"2019-11-27T13:56:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T13:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/?p=3788"},"modified":"2019-11-27T14:51:24","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T14:51:24","slug":"the-sound-of-starlings-massing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/the-sound-of-starlings-massing\/","title":{"rendered":"the sound of starlings massing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Winter is coming, and that means that millions of starlings are on the move, from the deep cold of Continental Europe to the relative mildness of Britain&#8217;s winters. We are surrounded by the sea, which buffers the temperatures reducing the cold in the depths of winter. They join our resident starlings to roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rspb.org.uk\/birds-and-wildlife\/natures-home-magazine\/birds-and-wildlife-articles\/migration\/migratory-bird-stories\/starling-migration\/\">double the population in winter<\/a>, according the the RSPB.<\/p>\n<p>A starling is nothing that special individually, but in winter they roost communally in reedbeds<sup id=\"fnref-3788-0\"><a class=\"jetpack-footnote\" href=\"#fn-3788-0\">1<\/a><\/sup> these days. They group together in massive billowing clouds called murmurations<sup id=\"fnref-3788-1\"><a class=\"jetpack-footnote\" href=\"#fn-3788-1\">2<\/a><\/sup>, this is thought to be trying to confuse birds of prey, who can&#8217;t home in on individual birds.<\/p>\n<h3>The unquiet sound of massed starlings<\/h3>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3788-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191106-1841_0255trm.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191106-1841_0255trm.mp3\">https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191106-1841_0255trm.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>Once they&#8217;ve settled in for a while a massive racket starts to built up, this is a binaural recording best on headphones. The slight dread at 4:30 is when a bird of prey came along, it silenced the starlings closest to me but most of the roost was still rapping away to each other.<\/p>\n<p>I managed to get myself to within fifty yards of one of their roosts on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rspb.org.uk\/reserves-and-events\/reserves-a-z\/ham-wall\/\">Ham Wall<\/a>, in the <a href=\"http:\/\/avalonmarshes.org\/the-avalon-marshes\/wildlife\/starling-spectacular\/\">Avalon Marshes<\/a> complex of nature reserves, sited on only peat extractions. Although the starlings tend to roost somewhere on the reserves, which site they favour varies from day to day. When you&#8217;re that close to the roost, you get to hear the damnedest noise from these guys. A starling roost is not a peaceful place &#8211; they charge around low in the reedbeds, and as the day gave way to twilight I saw a bird of prey strafe in low over the water, though I couldn&#8217;t make out whether it won its supper for the night.<\/p>\n<p>It was a slight challenge to stand my ground as I was buzzed by wave upon wave of birds incoming on all points very low. They didn&#8217;t go for me, although The Birds<sup id=\"fnref-3788-2\"><a class=\"jetpack-footnote\" href=\"#fn-3788-2\">3<\/a><\/sup> movie did come to mind.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T1c5SFxkO9I?version=3&#038;rel=0&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<h3>Some tips if you are going to visit a starling roost<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Choose a still day, the starlings take more time about their murmurations if they don&#8217;t have to fight the wind or rain<\/li>\n<li>Go early in the season &#8211; November or December. The season persists often through to March, but starling shit is a pretty noxious smell. The hum builds up to an acrid stench as time passes<\/li>\n<li>For the same reason, keep your mouth closed if you look up at phalanxes of starlings passing overhead \ud83d\ude09<\/li>\n<li>Go on a weekday &#8211; fewer people and dogs with all that goes with that&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/avalonmarshes.org\/the-avalon-marshes\/wildlife\/starling-spectacular\/\">Avalon Marshes<\/a> has a Starling Hotline 07866 554142 that tells you where the birds roosted last night. That doesn&#8217;t tell you where they will be tonight, but it lifts the odds. It&#8217;s a dead cert if you fancy the early morning sight when they leave, however.<\/li>\n<li>Take a torch. It&#8217;s very dark when the birds pack it in, and the cold comes as the sun goes down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"footnotes\">\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li id=\"fn-3788-0\">In the early parts of the 20th century when the starling population was much higher and we hadn&#8217;t killed off most of the insect population they had <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books?id=SJ5gAgAAQBAJ&amp;lpg=PA329&amp;ots=K3BDyNBD7-&amp;dq=starling%20roost%20charing%20cross&amp;pg=PA329#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">massive urban roosts<\/a> in London.\u00a0<a href=\"#fnref-3788-0\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-3788-1\">You can find a roost near to you on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starlingsintheuk.co.uk\/roost-map.html\">Starlings in the UK<\/a> site to see murmurations for yourself\u00a0<a href=\"#fnref-3788-1\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"fn-3788-2\">Hitchcock could have done very well with the electric, eerie sound of starlings, but he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/horror-and-the-art-of-noise\/a-17098601\">synthesised the soundtrack using a Trautonium.<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"#fnref-3788-2\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winter is coming, and that means that millions of starlings are on the move, from the deep cold of Continental Europe to the relative mildness of Britain&#8217;s winters. We are surrounded by the sea, which buffers the temperatures reducing the cold in the depths of winter. They join our resident starlings to roughly double the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/the-sound-of-starlings-massing\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;the sound of starlings massing&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[296,237,285],"tags":[380,214,381],"class_list":["post-3788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-sounds","category-nature-reserves","tag-murmuration","tag-starling","tag-wildlife-spectacle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/1911_starlings.gif?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5aOO7-Z6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3788"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3805,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788\/revisions\/3805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.richardmudhar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}