Now you see them . . .

Brighton Beach is justly famed for its starling murmurations during the winter months. Usually as dusk approaches and before roosting for the night, many thousands of these birds swarm and swoop through the sky - between and near both piers - dancing together in what look like carefully-choreographed ensembles, thus creating the most mesmerising patterns. Crowds of humans gather on the beach and the pier, cameras in hand, to capture the sight. And the photographs they take can be made yet more photogenic (startling even!) with either of the piers in the background and/or the setting sun.

NOW YOU SEE THEM . . .

These two photographs were taken a few minutes apart last evening(the sun drops fairly quickly below the horizon line at this time of year). I was not able to capture the beautiful shapes made by the murmurations - though wonderful videos and gorgeous stills of them can be found elsewhere, such as on Facebook and Instagram. However, the above photo gives a sense, maybe, of how each bird twists and turns through the sky, painting the air with movement - pure, wild, and apparently weightless - to form a scene both serene and dramatic, a fleeting moment of natural beauty.

NOW YOU DON'T . . .

According to The Woodland Trust, thousands of starlings all swirling and swooping together means one thing: safety. The sheer volume of birds confuses predators like peregrine falcons and makes it much harder for them to pick off individual birds. The characteristic shapes of a murmuration come from the rapid changes in direction. Starlings have extremely fast reactions, so when one bird changes speed or direction, the birds around it do too. This also allows the birds to move within the murmuration itself, meaning that no one bird spends too much time at the edge of the group, where they’re vulnerable to predation. When roosting, apparently, they also like to snuggle up together for a warmer night.

Apart from Brighton, other famous murmuration sites include: Shapwick Heath, Somerset Levels (where six million birds were recorded in 1999); Aberystwyth Pier, Ceredigion; Leighton Moss, Lancashire; Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire; Minsmere, Suffolk; Newport Wetlands, South Wales.