I watched our starling roost again last night, and it was as good as ever, although a bit different too.
One lady came to watch the starling roost as her birthday treat. She told me it was a "big" birthday, and she'd never seen a starling roost other than on TV and the RSPB web site (http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/s/starling/roosting.aspx). I was so relieved that the starlings played their part and were the icing on her birthday cake. Her only regret was that she didn't live close enough to come every afternoon!
We'll have starling pin badges at our information point in the car park on Sunday - they make great souvenirs of the display.
Usually flocks arrive at low altitude - those that arrive from the north-east skim over the top of the hedge behind the car park, but last night many flocks were significantly higher. Why? We couldn't see that anything was different other than the weather, which was changing to damp and misty. Even some of the formation flying was done at high altitude - luckily, the local police helicopter wasn't trying to pass at the same time!
As in recent nights, many flocks arrived too late to join in the formation flying, and headed straight down into the reeds, guided by the noise of those birds that were already in there. Perhaps as many as 6000 starlings had taken part in the flying display, before funneling down to roost, then there were the late flocks - another 4000, 5000 or even 6000 birds?
Later in the evening, I watched another starling roost - at Aberystwyth Pier (on Autumnwatch). That was the best bit of TV I've seen for ages. Wouldn't it be great to see what was happening in a reedbed roost? That would be a bigger challenge for the camera people, as the birds don't use exactly the same patch of reeds each and every night, unlike a pier, which as a limited number of places to perch.