Starling Murmuration - Middleton Moor

News of a large Starling murmuration/ roost at Middleton Moor near Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire, was posted on Darley Dale Birder's website earlier in the winter. Yesterday, Jayne and I decided to drive up to have a look. We arrived at about 3.20pm, and the first birds began to arrive almost immediately. In the next 45 minutes tens of thousands of birds flew in and roosted in the reedbeds. Unfortunately the birds didn't "murmurate" much tonight, but it was still an excellent experience.

Starlings

Starling Murmaration

For several years now, Jayne and I have been talking about visiting a Starling roost/murmaration. There are several to be found around the country, but we've never managed to find one close by. This year, however, we heard about one containing around 20,000 birds at Middleton Moor, near Stoney Middleton, which is about half an hour's drive from our house.

We decided to pop across this afternoon and we were very pleased that we did. We arrived at 3.30pm, and the first few birds began to arrive straight away. Over the next hour literally thousands and thousands flew in over out heads before dropping down into the reedbeds. We estimated tens, if not hundreds of thousands, but I can't be sure. Most birds flew straight in to the reeds, but several thousand did a bit of a murmaration before dropping in to roost. Amazing sight, and I even managed to get splattered, if you know what I mean- what an honour!

Here are a few photos. Please count the birds and let me know how many you get! Here's a link to a short video from tonight as well.

Starlings at Middleton Moor

Such high numbers of  Starlings always attract the attention of predators, and we saw 1 Sparrowhawk flying through the birds. A Peregrine Falcon was seen to take one bird on the other side of the roost by other observers, and a Buzzard also flew past.

Unusually, a Curlew was also heard and then seen flying around the site. Quite late in the season I would have thought?

Tit and Swallow Recoveries

One of the many joys of ringing is when I receive an email from fellow ringer, David, outlining details of recoveries of birds ringed by ourselves or other members of the BTO's Ringing Scheme. I receive two such emails this week and here are the details.

The first email was a record of two tits that we had ringed earlier this year as juvenile birds (pulli), in the nest boxes at Linacre Reservoirs. One was a Blue Tit, that was ringed on 4th June in box 5a and was one of a brood of 9 birds. This bird was retrapped last Saturday (see here), by us (Sorby Breck Ringing Group), at our feeding station at Linacre, an amazing movement of approximately 1/2km!!

The second bird was a Great Tit. This bird, too, was ringed by us at Linacre in box 14 on 12th June, one of a brood of 5, and was retrapped again at the feeding station as well. Great to see these two birds doing so well. Hopefully, they'll turn up breeding in the nestboxes in 2014.

The second email I received told me about two Swallows that we "controlled" at The Avenue Washlands back in August (see here). Controls are birds that we catch that have been ringed by other ringers. The first bird, a bird born this year, had been ringed at Middleton Moor, 21km away on 26th July and we caught it again on 30th July. The second bird, another of this year's birds, had travelled a little further (47km), from Wintersett Reservoir in West Yorkshire. It had been originally ringed on 14th August and we caught it again on 26th August (see here). Hopefully these two birds carried on south and are now enjoying the sun in South Africa!