Another thing about starlings is the noises they make. Not exactly a song, in many ways more expressive, filled not only with notes and whistles, but also pops, crackles and other warblings I don’t even know how to describe. Taken together as a whole, a little like listening to music on an old shortwave radio, the static as mysterious as the tunes themselves.

Sometimes you’ll hear one starling on it’s own, perched just a few feet away from you, talking and singing to itself. As the afternoon rolls on you’ll be reminded that the light is failing as they gather on the rooftops outside to whistle together, perhaps exchanging news in preparation for this evenings show.

I remember a long time ago when I first moved to Brighton, walking home through the park late at night in the dead of winter, and as I walked past the trees, whenever the breeze lifted into a gust, the sound of these tiny birds waking briefly with the wind, would ripple as if the branches were festooned with a thousand icicles and shards of glass tinkling together in the darkness.

When they fly together in murmurations, starlings are completely silent, all that you’ll hear is the sussuration of their wings beating together as they pass overhead, their concentration in flight almost palpable. But as soon as they settle the twittering begins so that, if you’re standing on the pier, you’ll suddenly find the air filled with a great mass of shrill calls and squeakings that I’d be tempted to describe as a roar if it wasn’t so high pitched; louder than the waves, and the cocktail jazz and 80’s soul that seems to be the preferred piped music of the pier managers.

 

Today, as soon as their display ended I headed for the pier to record this extraordinary sound, which I present here, along with today’s photographs: