Serendipity led me out to the garage to fetch my camera from the car. I was going to take an indoor photo for this blog, so I slid open the deck door and was immediately amazed by a phenomenal sound: a starling symphony. Not a startling symphony, although I guess you'd have to call it that too.
Once before, Don and I heard the starlings flock and gather in the trees around the farm. The blended assortment of squeaks, whistles and squawks is unlike anything else I've experienced. As wiki says, their song is a mix of "mimicry, clicks, wheezes, chattering, whistles, rattles, and piping notes." Imagine that times a thousand.
Starlings are famous for traveling in flocks, even when they're not migrating. They are not native to North America, and my father-in-law tells me they are a problem because they have few predators. Apparently they don't taste good, and hawks don't like eating them. So their numbers continue to grow, making these flocks more and more vast.
click on the photos to enlarge and see the birds just a little bit better Within five minutes they were ready to leave. I'm assuming they were migrating south, although they disappeared into the northeast when they flew away beyond the poplars.
Common Starling
Sturnus vulgaris
Please watch this five and a half minute video of starlings at Ot Moor, England, by Dylan Winter, in aerobatics in which they miraculously form a moving fabric of birds undulating and maneuvering without colliding. My experience this week did not quite get to this expanded dance:
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