Always on the lookout for interesting urban wildlife photo projects, Tomos Brangwyn discovered
one of the UK’s greatest nature spectacles happening in a supermarket car park
With my chin pressed firmly to the ground, a flash in one hand and a fisheye lens in the other, this was one trip to the shops I was never going to forget. I was surrounded by a gang of mischievous iridescent starlings, whose lustrous feathers sparkled in the glow of the mid-morning winter sun.
It was a special moment, undeniably. Starling numbers have declined dramatically in recent years and finding a remaining stronghold is not easy. Getting up close, in the hope of creating a strikingly personal image, was even harder.
My father had told me stories of great murmurations taking place within sight of Buckingham Palace in the 1960s. A tale also persists of there once being enough birds to halt the movement of Big Ben when a large group landed upon one of its hands in 1949. But sadly, times have changed and none of my visits to either places yielded anything more than small and isolated flocks.
Things became more promising when I was told of a supermarket car park where starlings arrive daily, tempted in from the countryside by the promise of crisps, sandwich leftovers and the odd piece of dropped fruit. They drink from puddles, pick through mud that has accumulated between the tread of car tires and perch upon windscreen mirrors. It sounded just too good an opportunity to miss.
At 10am the following day, as if by clockwork, the first birds began to trickle in from the south. There were only a few starlings at first, but as the minutes went by, more and more gathered. The birds were hungry and were soon scurrying about, scanning the ground for breakfast scraps. One found a discarded apple core and raucous bickering among the group quickly followed.
Not long after, danger loomed overhead. Silence fell and heads were tilted up towards the sky. They remained dead still and alert. A great whoosh could be heard as every bird, perhaps 200 at this point, ascended high into the sky. A peregrine was soaring high, barely within sight, and the starlings twisted and turned as one, evading the threat until it eventually passed.
As the starlings gradually returned to the ground, it was time for me to leave. I smiled all the way home, my spirits lifted by a wild encounter that many of us can enjoy within our towns and cities, for now at least.
one of the UK’s greatest nature spectacles happening in a supermarket car park
With my chin pressed firmly to the ground, a flash in one hand and a fisheye lens in the other, this was one trip to the shops I was never going to forget. I was surrounded by a gang of mischievous iridescent starlings, whose lustrous feathers sparkled in the glow of the mid-morning winter sun.
It was a special moment, undeniably. Starling numbers have declined dramatically in recent years and finding a remaining stronghold is not easy. Getting up close, in the hope of creating a strikingly personal image, was even harder.
My father had told me stories of great murmurations taking place within sight of Buckingham Palace in the 1960s. A tale also persists of there once being enough birds to halt the movement of Big Ben when a large group landed upon one of its hands in 1949. But sadly, times have changed and none of my visits to either places yielded anything more than small and isolated flocks.
Things became more promising when I was told of a supermarket car park where starlings arrive daily, tempted in from the countryside by the promise of crisps, sandwich leftovers and the odd piece of dropped fruit. They drink from puddles, pick through mud that has accumulated between the tread of car tires and perch upon windscreen mirrors. It sounded just too good an opportunity to miss.
At 10am the following day, as if by clockwork, the first birds began to trickle in from the south. There were only a few starlings at first, but as the minutes went by, more and more gathered. The birds were hungry and were soon scurrying about, scanning the ground for breakfast scraps. One found a discarded apple core and raucous bickering among the group quickly followed.
Not long after, danger loomed overhead. Silence fell and heads were tilted up towards the sky. They remained dead still and alert. A great whoosh could be heard as every bird, perhaps 200 at this point, ascended high into the sky. A peregrine was soaring high, barely within sight, and the starlings twisted and turned as one, evading the threat until it eventually passed.
As the starlings gradually returned to the ground, it was time for me to leave. I smiled all the way home, my spirits lifted by a wild encounter that many of us can enjoy within our towns and cities, for now at least.
No comments:
Post a Comment