In Brighton, the starlings shapeshift against an orange sky on the seafront fringes of the city. They’re known for their displays at the Palace and West Piers, but you’ll also find them dancing around an electricity pylon on the Old Shoreham Road, and above warehouses, shopping centres and allotments – cityscapes that bring birds and people together.
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Our resident starlings seem to start thinking about murmuration in late August, after their second brood of chicks has fledged.
I watch them on the rooftops, from where they seem to practise their dance moves (I like to imagine one of them is curating the whole thing, like a ballet teacher shouting ‘one, two, three, four’ at a class of particularly dedicated five-year-olds).
When I’m at my allotment, I hear them rattling off their computer-like calls, and watch them fly from one rooftop to the other, as if impatient for the party.
From October, our residents are joined by migrants from Scandinavia and Russia, and suddenly they’re everywhere – every rooftop, every bridge, every pylon, every bit of scaffolding. Still, they practise their dance moves; still they impatiently hop from house to house.
Then, one day, I will see a gang fly up and off in the direction of the seafront, and from then on, at dusk and again at dawn, I have my eyes on the sky.
The murmurations themselves are magic: on the beach I watch huge gangs drop effortlessly into the mêlée, where they instantly fall in sync with those already there; on Palace Pier I tune into their chattering intensity as they disappear beneath me to roost.
I have made friends with others who also turn up to watch the starlings, and we stand and gawp together.
But it’s the build-up that gets me the most: waiting at traffic lights as thousands of birds cross the road, making their way to the piers; feeling the rush of wings overhead; walking along the seafront and cheering on those that have overtaken me and beaten me to the party.
From November to the end of February, I spend my days watching the starlings on the rooftops from my desk. At my allotment, I listen to their calls and feel their energy change as the day shifts to dusk and they prepare to set off to the seafront.
Walking to the gym in the morning, I am sometimes rewarded with the sight of them returning from the piers to their daytime rooftops, from where they’ll forage for insects, grubs and spiders.
They are always in big gangs, always flying as one, like giant airships crossing the city. Starling murmuration isn’t just one spectacle for an hour or so each afternoon; it’s a whole process, a way of living, and I love being a part of it.
Last autumn, I found a dead starling while out with the dog. I took it to the allotment and laid it to rest on a patch of bare soil in the greenhouse, before closing the door so the foxes couldn’t reach it.
Instead, the flies came, and I spent the next few weeks watching as their larvae helped it return to the earth, its smart white chest speckles expanding before disappearing, its tweezer-like bill fading from charcoal grey to the familiar skull-white of death.
Each time I visited the allotment, as its friends impatiently bustled and whooped overhead, I would find something new to love on the ground: the juxtaposition of exuberant life and gentle death, the final shapeshift. I do hope it got to dance before it died.
