Starlings

I have never seen so many starlings as I did yesterday, apart from on nature programmes. They came swirling in and settled in clusters on all the surrounding trees. Hundreds of them, so that, in the distance, the trees looked as if they were heavily laden with fruit. And the noise! The air was loud with piercing whistles. It's a wonder they don't deafen themselves.

This got me to thinking about starlings and I realised that I had never seen a starling's nest. As they are in such numbers, if they built nests, you'd see them everywhere, on every tree. There would be no room for blackbirds and even magpies would be crowded out.

I went onto the RSPB website and discovered that starlings build their nests in holes in trees and buildings. They join the flock in order to feed - maybe as much as 20 miles away from their roosts - then, at dusk, they all flock together again (safety in numbers, I suppose, to protect them from birds of prey) and go back to their nests. I love to see them rise like swirling smoke in the air, performing their aerial ballets. It's an awesome sight.

Glimpsed a sparrowhawk a few days ago. It often perches atop a tall birch tree a few gardens
away, using it as a lookout post. It was because of the sparrowhawk that we had to take down our bird table. A few days after it was erected, when there were a few sparrows on it, the hawk came hurtling across the garden. It failed to catch one, but the danger was obvious so, to protect the sparrows of Hillingdon, we dismantled it. Shame!