Best place to catch starling murmurations near Hertfordshire? (1 Viewer)

[wotcha]

Still relatively new to birding, I've had a great year identifying around 50 species new to me so my biggest ambition now is to catch a major starling murmuration display.

But the big question is, when and where? Am aware that such displays are highly unpredictable, but living in St Albans (mid-Herts) UK, I'd cheerfully travel up to 50, maybe even 100 miles if I thought there was a reasonable chance of catching one.

Did a search of the forums and have found just one reference, and that to a mini-murmuration only, within the last month.

Is this not a particularly good year?

Are there certain weather conditions that are more likely to trigger them?

Having googled these questions I'm finding the answers are very elusive.

All help much appreciated.

 

[foresttwitcher]

RSPB Otmoor, Oxfordshire, may be worth a try.

 

[wotcha]

Thanks for the tip off. Hoping to go Wednesday or Thursday, weather permitting.

 

[wotcha]

I plan to go to RSPB Otmoor tomorrow, Friday, and I'm enormously excited about the prospect, although also very aware that I might end up disappointed.

The forecast for tomorrow is for very light winds and cloudy skies with a 10% risk of rain. Clouds hopefully clearing as dusk approaches. So visibility may not be too clever but that's a chance I will have to take.

Since starting this thread I've learnt a few more pointers about the most conducive conditions for starling murmurations:

1. Avoid windy weather, starlings do not like strong winds. (So I avoided going yesterday and today when the forecast suggested very windy weather.)

2. Get there early. They can vary the timing of their display depending on how clear the skies are. If the skies are clear very early in the evening they may start their murmurations early and it could all be over long before dusk.

3. For the best chance of getting lucky the absolute optimum time of year appears to be December. Into the New Year numbers may decline or even collapse completely, although I have yet to discover how far into the New Year this might be. Fingers crossed it's not already too late.

So wish me luck! I hope to report back with some decent video (I'm no photographer) of the most amazing bird spectacle known to mankind.

 

[wotcha]

Well I had a great day at Otmoor today. Witnessed about 90 mins of murmurations although numbers were relatively small compared to the 30k / 40k I'd hoped for, it was probably more like 3k or 4k at best. Even so it was still a magnificent spectacle, especially when the birds eventually flew into the sunset. Check out the video clip I've uploaded to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiIUUKSJq0Y

Met a lurker of this site who never posts but said he'd read this blog and decided to give it a go. Another chap I met seemed a bit disappointed, said he'd been visiting Otmoor for many years and advised that the optimum time to go is October, and that November and December are generally better than January.

There IS a murmuration somewhere in the photo below - although you might need a telescope to see it ||

 

[foresttwitcher]

Glad you saw some & had a good day at a great site.

 

[wotcha]

Oops!

Someone has suggested that the birds in the 'murmuration' video I posted to YouTube are more likely lapwings! Never having watched any large flock of flying birds before but having been urged to look out exclusively for starlings at Otmoor it did not for one moment occur to me they might be anything else.

Begs the question though, where HAVE all the starlings gone?

The clip has now been removed, sorry about that.

 

[punkskaphil]

Oops!

Someone has suggested that the birds in the 'murmuration' video I posted to YouTube are more likely lapwings! Never having watched any large flock of flying birds before but having been urged to look out exclusively for starlings at Otmoor it did not for one moment occur to me they might be anything else.

Begs the question though, where HAVE all the starlings gone?

The clip has now been removed, sorry about that.

That was me with the comment - but I think you should have kept it up because it was a nice video anyway!

I noticed it because I made a similar mistake recently, filming a distant flock in the sunset at Rainham. Because of their similar behaviour it never occurred to me at the time that they weren't Starlings until my girlfriend pointed out that they looked more like pigeons. It's surprising how many other species flock like that before they roost, but we obviously hear more about Starlings because they do it in the most spectacular way.

I've not seen a big murmuration myself yet, but I did see one of c200 Starlings at Tottenham Hale one evening last summer. Wandsworth Bridge is supposed to have a fairly decent regular murmuration but I've only seen handfuls of Starlings flying under it to roost, rather than the proper murmuration. I'm hoping to get a chance to go down to Brighton Pier soon, which is supposed to be one of the best sites.

 

[wotcha]

That was me with the comment - but I think you should have kept it up because it was a nice video anyway!

I noticed it because I made a similar mistake recently, filming a distant flock in the sunset at Rainham. Because of their similar behaviour it never occurred to me at the time that they weren't Starlings until my girlfriend pointed out that they looked more like pigeons. It's surprising how many other species flock like that before they roost, but we obviously hear more about Starlings because they do it in the most spectacular way.

I've not seen a big murmuration myself yet, but I did see one of c200 Starlings at Tottenham Hale one evening last summer. Wandsworth Bridge is supposed to have a fairly decent regular murmuration but I've only seen handfuls of Starlings flying under it to roost, rather than the proper murmuration. I'm hoping to get a chance to go down to Brighton Pier soon, which is supposed to be one of the best sites.

Thanks for the comments, feeling a bit less of a plonker now! :t:

Am planning to try my luck at Otmoor again this coming Saturday so fingers crossed Ill be able to replace the phoney clip with the genuine article.

 

[Samuel Perfect]

Marsworth Reservoir near Tring has murmurations numbering several thousand Starlings some years when it gets particularly cold. I don't think there are many (if any at all) this year but it's worth keeping that site in mind as it's much closer to St Albans. :t:

 

[wotcha]

Marsworth Reservoir near Tring has murmurations numbering several thousand Starlings some years when it gets particularly cold. I don't think there are many (if any at all) this year but it's worth keeping that site in mind as it's much closer to St Albans. :t:

Thanks Samuel, was not aware of that so will certainly watch out for it in future.

:t:

 

[wotcha]

Whoopee - nailed it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNmE5k7al14

Having been advised by some that it was probably too late in the New Year and numbers were dwindling, imagine my joy at capturing this spectacular show.

More than made up for my disappointment at discovering I'd filmed a flock of lapwings last week.

o

 

[foresttwitcher]

Nice.

 

[wotcha]

Nice.

Thanks.

Thanks also for your Otmoor tip; saw loads more there besides, including a wonderful close-up study of two dazzling bullfinches in the hedgerow.

All-in-all a great place to visit.

 

[foresttwitcher]

Thanks also for your Otmoor tip.

No problem.

All-in-all a great place to visit.

Agreed.

 

[wotcha]

Returned to Otmoor on Tuesday and was rewarded with an even better show than on my previous visit in January.

It began about an hour before dusk, small to medium groupings forming up into balls or elongated streaks, sometimes moving very rapidly along the horizon to join up with other groups.

From time to time they disappeared then reappeared in different parts of the sky, essentially moving around the horizon from East to west, occasionally dancing but mainly moving slowly back and forth like one great amoeba in the sky.

Captured much of it on video except for the critical five minutes before the starlings went down to roost. By this time the murmuration had become quite substantial, might have been 10K, maybe more, who knows, but just as it was really starting to liven up my camera card ran out of space.

So I was obliged to settle for watching the spectacle without recording, and of course, sods law, this was when at last it got really spectacular. The birds seemed to get more excited just before going down to roost, performing dramatic shapes in the sky then finally amassing into one gigantic, solid black ball before suddenly descending as if down a funnel into their roost.

Wow! What a magnificent sight! One of the birders I spoke to about it afterwards said he'd seen several murmurations over the years but this had been the best ever.

Though cursing myself for not carrying a spare card I was consoled by the realisation I'd just experienced one of nature's most gobsmacking spectacles.

The vidcaps below were taken fairly early on before the display really took off.

 

[Boro Birder]

You were lucky because it is getting a bit late. On my local.patch (Portrack Marsh) NE England numbers have been dwindling since mid Jan, at first getting groups of between nearly a thousand and over a thousand. Now you barely get 50+.
So happy you managed to catch up with one of natures greatest acts.
Always makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck lol.

Damian

 

[wotcha]

Thanks Damian.

It seems surprisingly difficult to get a handle on the latest murmuration activity around Britain from birding websites, they mostly seem to concentrate on sitings of rare or interesting birds.

So I searched for the latest uploads to YouTube as an alternative method. By entering 'murmuration' then selecting 'this week' from the filter options I found over thirty new uploads, mostly British, including a couple of really good ones around Oxford that had been recorded just a few days earlier.

Seems you are unlucky because it's clear from these uploads that some parts of the country are still enjoying excellent displays, including Gretna, Norwich, Somerset Levels, Brighton, Warrington, an unspecified part of Wales and the Oxford area.

It's interesting because on arrival at Otmoor I also chatted to a couple of local birders I met and they were quite dubious about the prospects this late in the year. Seems even they were unaware it was still happening on their own doorstep! Maybe this year is exceptional for some places at least.

Will certainly try this method in future because for me it's a 120-mile round trip!

 

[a_j_steele]

Fen Drayton in cambridgeshire used to be good place for the murmuration (seen from the carpark) though not sure what the status is now trip report from 2010 http://www.rspb.org.uk/groups/stalbans/reports/263281/, hope that helps and gives you ideals for next year

 

[Telephoto Paul]

The murmuration at Brighton was still performing well as of Saturday. It was good to see that a large portion of the pier's footfall stopped to enjoy the sight.

Photo blog.