Starlings over the reserve
Sturnus vulgaris
European Starling · Dungeness · 20 December 2025
A pass of the evening starling murmuration low over the water at Dungeness in December, a few birds' wingtips nearly brushing the surface. Starlings gather over the reedbeds here at dusk in winter, thousands of them from the farmland around, before dropping in to roost.
The flock thins and thickens as birds peel off and rejoin. Nobody in a murmuration is leading. Each bird tracks its seven nearest neighbours and matches them, and that rule alone, run across thousands of birds at once, produces the shapes - the same maths that describes a shoal of fish.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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