Starlings aplenty!

[merlinsboy]

Another tale of Herefordshire birdlife! A cob nut tree nearly engulfed wholly with ivy, hop bines and brambles that sits behind my mother in laws house on a hill overlooking the Wye valley is The Grande Hotel for starlings. At dawn the chorus of waking birds reaches a crescendo of wittering ending with a phased departure of groups of 20 or so until the tree is empty. My guess is between 120 to 150 birds. The best sight though, is of the arrivals just before dark. Coming in from various directions in their groups, they settle and squabble and settle again till all is quiet. The noise is something else! Then, all is hush as the last shards of sunlight slip silently over the Welsh mountains to the West. The scene to be repaeted in the coming morning mirrors our own daily grind. If only we could fly as they do?
Do you know of similar tree hotels?

[John]

We have a tree a couple of gardens away that is a temporary host to about 300 Starlings each day. They arrive in small groups then just before dark leave en mass towards Coombe Abbey.

We also have a very large flock of Greenfinches that do the same thing and our estimate on those numbers are 150 or more.

[nightshade]

There used to be an umberella shaped tree that was taken over by an ivy
it was always full of pied wagtails,hundreds at a time no matter how hard it rained or blew it was always bone dry and on fishing trips was always the place to head for when it rained

[Frogbad]

I live near some saltmarshes, which for some reason the starlings love as a roost - just lately there must have been 5,000 roosting at night, turning the sky black.

Funny though don't get many in the garden despite an abundant amount of food?

[StuartDH]

We have a dozen starlings that live by the house most of the year, but in autumn the numbers go up to a several hundred. Every day for a month, the Rowan tree in our front garden is like McDonalds on a Saturday afternoon as hundreds of Starling come and grab something to eat. They all arrive at once, take just one berry, then a minute later they're gone again until the next day.

[Lou-D]

There are two huge poplar trees in the field opposite my house and, in the summer months, I love to watch approx 100-200 starlings come in to roost on an evening, it sort of rounds off the day. The trees are vacated during the winter months.

There is a larger starling roost in Queen's Gardens in Hull town centre. There are huge poplar trees there too and there must be nigh on 3 - 5000 birds that home in on them all year round. It's amazing watching them gather in the sky. They then fly around for ages, making shapes in the sky as they swoop and dive, before they get lower and finally seem to drop into the trees.

[Helen]

I never see a starling.

[helenmckenna]

last night - coming back from Gretna we saw thousands of starlings congregating to roost. It really was an amazing sight. We stopped off at the first service station on the way to Lockerbie to watch them. Does anyone know where the roost actually is round here? I suspect it is somewhere near the salt marshes on the Solway coast near Annan.

Thanks

Helen