I’m sitting on the sofa, watching starlings. There are thousands of them circling above and around me, swirling into spectacular, ever-shifting shapes. They curve and loop in a hypnotic dance, merging at times into thick knots of winding blackness.
The sound is equally astonishing: a wave of wing beats that pulses as the starlings snake across the sky. This compelling communal performance, known as a murmuration, culminates in the act of roosting. It’s the grand show put on before the starlings settle in for a winter night.
