‘You’re a sky full of stars. Such a heavenly view’ – Coldplay, A Sky Full of Stars
After several unsuccessfully attempts leaving me feeling rather deflated with my efforts, a few evenings ago I finally enjoyed a ‘starling watch’ worthy of writing about.
The skies were clear aside from a narrow belt of stubborn clouds lingering over the horizon as the setting sun cast a faint golden glow behind. Right on cue the starlings arrived, in small irregular flocks at first but soon many thousands more were appearing from all directions, merging into an ever growing mass of birds in the sky.
Unlike on my previous visits this year there seemed to be no urgency to descend to the roost today and the flock even showed a few tantalising glimpses at a murmuration. The starlings performed a slow but rhythmic dance across the sky for several minutes, the flock constantly shifting in shape and form in an effortless, fluid motion. This behaviour is quite different to the unpredictable, frantic displays caused when there is a predator in their midst, but nonetheless wonderful to watch.
I had both cameras to hand this evening enabling me to capture two different perspectives as the evening’s event unfolded, the trouble is knowing which to use at what moment to avoid missing the best of the action!
The wide angle lens, use in the photos above is great for capturing the immense scale whereas the telephoto lens reveals a more detailed, dynamic view of their behaviour from among the flock itself and is my favourite way to shoot murmurations.
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Photographs copyright of Claire Stott/Grey Feather Photography © 2023
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