Birds of a feather

They flock to the same place every evening. Their numbers seem swelled slightly more each night but their tight formation remains the same, closely packed but all facing in the same direction, making no sound but that of the rustle of their synchronised movements. Then, one of them clicks a camera shutter; another whispers “here they come!” and the whole group gasps in awe at what has become a regular nightly sighting above my village of late – the duskly display of the roosting starlings.

Many of the watchers have their theories about what these petrol-sheened birds are doing as they dip and dive overhead in a vast Hitchcockian swarm: a pre-bedtime snack perhaps, or burning off some last minute energy before sleep. Another premise is that each bird maintains its position in the undulating cloud by merely keeping an eye on seven others which surround it. As a sparrow hawk occasionally patrols the swooping borders of their flock, some say their formation flying makes it harder for them to be attacked by predatory birds.

There are, perhaps, as may answers as there are birds, but with the beating of thousands of wings overhead conjuring up the sound of the tide running up and down a shingle beach (and the regular ‘spit spit’ noise of the birds’ nightly expellations blessing the cars and heads of the collected onlookers) it is easy to see why the collective noun for a group of starlings is a ‘murmuration’.