Starling
A murmuration of starlings is one of our great British wildlife spectacles and never ceases to inspire and amaze as Brett Westwood discovers in a reed bed on the Somerset Levels
Every Autumn vast numbers of continental starlings migrate here to take advantage of our milder winters. Huge flocks of a million birds or more swirl over their roost sites before settling down for the night. These impressive gatherings, called murmurations, are both remarkable and inspiring as Brett Westwood discovers as he visits a reed bed in Somerset. He also gets to grips with the physics of how the birds avoid each other in flight and hears from a sound artist who uses the patterns of starlings on a wire as musical staves. Plus a man whose starlings accompany him on the pian
Podcast
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Natural Histories
Stories of nature’s impact on human culture and society through history.