Starlings by David Kjaer (rspb-images.com)
At this time of year dark clouds begin to form in the sky above fields, woodlands and reedbeds. But these are no ordinary clouds - they're one of the UK's most incredible wildlife spectacles.
Throughout the autumn and winter months, hundreds of thousands of starlings turn the sky black around the UK. The birds come together in huge clouds, wheeling, turning and swooping in unison, before dropping down to roost. There's safety in numbers and roosting together also offers a bit of warmth through the cold dark nights.
These gatherings are called murmurations. If you follow the link you can see a video of one - filmed here at Fen Drayton Lakes a few years ago!
There's often a regular murmuration here once the weather gets cold enough, and I'm really happy to say that just this weekend we started to see a flock of 1-2,000 starlings gathering at dusk over Holywell Lake (the one right in front of the car park).
In previous years there's been a murmuration of 5-8,000 birds strong at its peak in November. There's no knowing how many starlings will choose to roost here this year, or whether they'll stay in the same place, but we'll try to keep you up to date below as the temperature falls further.
Starling and woodpigeon by Kaleel Zibe (rspb-images.com)
Alison Nimmo
RSPB Community Engagement Officer, Orkney
Update 14 November: Unfortunately our starlings remain rather unpredictable!
Some folk have been lucky enough to see flocks of up to 3,000 birds now, while on other evenings they haven't showed up at all or have dropped down into the reedbed almost immediately (despite good weather).
If you'd like to come along the best advice we can give is to choose a dry evening without much wind and arrive a bit before dusk.
At this time there are usually also lots of rooks and jackdaws arriving to roost in the trees between the car park and the river, and sometimes gulls gathering on Ferry Lagoon. You might even spot an elusive bittern coming into roost in the Holywell Lake reedbed. So there’s lots of wildlife around to enjoy as dusk falls even if the starlings don’t show up.