I have been hoping to watch a Starling Murmuration, where hundreds of thousands of birds flock together swirling in the sky at dawn and dusk, in the UK for a long time. My dream came true during my visit to England at Christmas.
The Starling is one of the commonest garden birds in UK.
Each year, in addition to the UK resident birds, millions of starlings from Europe spend the winter in the relatively warm Britain.
These birds are very sociable and prefer to roost together because it not only offers safety in numbers but also enables them to keep warm together. Each day, they tend to flock back to (and leave) the roosting place at the same time, which are magical moments for bird watchers.
In spite of the fact that every part of my starling watch plan had gone wrong (dark cloudy morning, bad timing, lost on the way...) , it was still overwhelming when I saw tens of thousands of birds departing from their roosting place in Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve, Somerset.
Clearly the starling’s performance was under represented by the images shown here. I am determined to go back next year with a better plan and return with better photos~
