This year winter flocks of Starlings seem to be larger than in recent previous years. The flocks I am seeing this year around Endon appear to contain at least four times more Starlings than last year. On 6th December John Higgins, who lives in Oakamoor, phoned me to tell me that at about 8am that morning a huge flock of Starlings that “turned the sky almost black for five minutes” had passed overhead and travelled on towards Threapwood. I wonder if the huge flock John saw was a combination of all the Starlings from the Staffordshire Moorlands area and had they just left their overnight roost (in just getting light at that time of the morning at this time of year)? I haven't seen a murmuration here in Endon.
Over the past few days I have noticed that the Starlings, along with Black-headed Gulls and corvids, seem to favour feeding in fields that have either been recently cultivated (and perhaps sown with winter wheat) or contain livestock. The photo below, taken during today's misty morning, just about shows a large flock of Starlings taking off from a sheep field between Endon and Longsdon. I presume that these fields supply more food than permanent pastures that are without grazing animals at the moment. Perhaps the presence of animal dung or soil turned up by scuffing of hooves provides a source of invertebrates on which the birds can feed?
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