Starlings!
Jon Brouchoud sent me this interesting video taken by Scott Fraser of European Starlings nearly taking out cedar trees:
European Starling image © 2006 Mike McDowell
posted by Mike McDowell @ 8:54 AM
3 comments
Friday, June 30, 2006
Jon Brouchoud sent me this interesting video taken by Scott Fraser of European Starlings nearly taking out cedar trees:
European Starling image © 2006 Mike McDowell
3 Comments:
Mike, I actually read your blog, and was suprised to see you linking to my video. Glad you enjoyed it... I have had the video on my blog since January, and recently converted it to Google Video to make it easier for people to watch.
-Scott Fraser
Not being an expert in Ornithology, I sincerely hesitate on offering up an explanation on the behaviour of the birds in Scott's video, primarilly because everyone may already understand exactly what the birds are doing. But in case that isn't the case....
It appears to be closing in on 'dusk' in the video and it is obviously during the winter based on the bareness of the surrounding trees. Generally speaking most birds like cover when it comes to the nights "roosting". And in the winter time only evergreens offer this security. So what we see in the video is apparently a large number of birds seeking the security of the evergreens for the nights roosting. However, the flock numbers are obviously too much for the size trees. It does seem to me, based on my experience in nature, that most birds who roost in flocks such as Blackbirds and Doves do seek out evergreen trees, whether it be winter or summer.
It has also been my experience that birds, again especially Blackbirds and Doves, tend to return to the same 'roosting' site night after night. I do not know if other species who navigate in flocks choose their roosting spots 'on-the-fly' so to speak, but that certainly seems to be the case in this video - assuming that wasn't their actual nightly 'roosting' location.
Assuming my hypothisis is correct, I am curious if Scott knows whether the birds eventually settled in there or moved on?
Alan - later in the video that I edited down the flock is seen heading over to the development in the background. I have never seen a flock of starlings on those two trees since. They are actually right across the street from my house.
There has been a lot of interest online recently related to Starlings and their flocking behavior. The Earth Science Picture of the Day on June 19 had some great shots of flocking in Denmark.
Then this past week my video got a lot of attention, shooting to the #2 spot on Google Video and staying near there for about 4 days. It is still on the Top 100 list today, and was linked to and replayed all over the place. Weird...
Suddenly my quiet blog was flooded with traffic. Some of the people thought the video was a hoax!
Never a dull moment on the internet....
-Scott
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