Hiya,
There are around 10-15 thousand starlings coming into roost at the moment and they are putting on a great murmuration.
Each year they tend to come around the end of October/beginning of November and stay until around New Year. This year, they were late in returning, so they only arrived last week. If we have a very cold winter, they have been known to stay through to Feb/March!
When you get here, just ask in the visitor centre where the best place to watch them from is (as they can change their minds each night). At the moment they are coming in at about 3 pm but that will get earlier as the nights draw in.
Hope to see you soon!
Best wishes,
Annabel
Oh thanks Annabel, looking forward to visiting soon.
Watching them last night towards shore bolton-le-sands, fantastic.
Hi,
I'm not sure if I have put these photo's on before, so I'll just add a link to my Flickr page... There are some pictures of Starlings at Leighton Moss from about 4 years ago. In one of them, it reminded me of the shape of the legendary Loch Ness Monster!
There are also someon there of a MASSIVE starling murmuration at Gretna a few years ago that seemed to be quite regular for a few years. However, I was up there a couple of weeks ago and there hasn't been one so far this season.
I asked a nice lady in the Tourist Information Office and she very kindly phoned a friend who is a bird watcher and he said they had been around Carlisle this year but I don't know exactly where. Plus of course there has been all that terrible flooding up there since then so the birds may even have moved away.
Anyway, here is the address for the flickr pics;
www.flickr.com/.../lightbox
or maybe this;
www.flickr.com/.../50916588@N05
Hope they work, if not let me know!
Cheers,
Jeff
Evening Jeff, both links worked fine, the first to the Starling murmuration photo and the 2nd link to your photostream which is fantastic; always great to see the murmuration activity and as for your photostream... they are all lovely, particularly love the young Kestrel looking up at you from the bottom of the castle wall. I'm off to take another look at your photos - great stuff so thanks for sharing :)
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Regards, Hazel
Just the most fabulous collection of Kestrel pics on your Flickr Jeff, thanks for the link, that's my fix sorted for a good while!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Thank you both for the kind comments!
I'm hoping to be able to get back up to LM soon to try to see the starlings... it's been a while since I saw a murmuration now.
The other place we've seen them at is probably one of the better known ones on the Somerset Levels (RSPB Ham Wall???).
I really hope to be able to get my video clips of them all sorted out one day!!! If I ever get time I'll put a link on here :¬)
Have a nice day.
Looking forward to seeing those murmuration captures Jeff, such an amazing spectacle!!
Don't hold your breath Wendy!!!!
I've promised to do this for a long time and still haven't got around to it ;¬)
Sometimes life just gets in the way LOL.
I might be "work free" for a while after Christmas, so there's a small chance of doing something early in the new year.
I can wait Jeff! Lol