Murmur

More murmur than murmuration. A smallish flock of starlings is being harried by a sparrowhawk as they approach the Silverdale Moss roost.  It was fascinating to watch their synchronous responses to a number of sorties made by the raptor, as they bunched tightly together, swivelling and swerving and successfully denying it a catch. Small though this flock is, there are still a couple of hundred individuals in this tight cluster, the larger bird to their right is the sparrowhawk.

I arrived a little late, but in any event the birds were not stopping there. Incoming flocks flew round apparently confused, then all headed off in the same direction southwards. Disappointing as it was not to see a big murmuration display over the Moss, it was more than compensated for by finding that Pam and Bern were there. But none of us could explain how the starling flocks knew which way to head when they found that the roost was not in the reedbed.

I'm still a day behind uploading my blips.