In the fall, the starlings begin flocking in daylight hours. You can see them in black clouds, rising and falling through the fields and forests. At night they roost in high trees and each sunset finds them searching for their night-time resting place.
We had a big cedar forest beside our former home and it was exciting to see them veering in as a flock, circling the area, landing, only to rebound into the sky, initiated by one unsettled bird, and sweeping around once again. After several of these wheeling episodes they finally settled and the noise began – chirping, screeching, chittering, and chattering, from a host of black starlings. Looking up at them from below, all we could see was the occasional bird as it hopped from branch to branch. It was amazing to think that there were hundreds of birds hidden in the leaves above our heads.
Finally, they settled with the coming of darkness. We had some fun going under the trees and suddenly letting out one loud “Whoop!” The birds ruffled up their wings in one sudden outburst, which upset the birds beside them, and then the birds beside them, and so on and so on in a giant ruffling wave that radiated out through the entire forest, like a giant wave in the crowd at Roger’s Centre.
But the birds got us back for upsetting their sleep. Early the next morning, as the sun began to rise, so did the birds. Once again they began their chirping, screeching, chittering, and chattering in a noisy clamour that woke even the most difficult morning riser. Then once again, off they went, wheeling and circling, gathering all the late stragglers, until they were gone. Silence reigned once again. All that was left was a forest floor littered with white bird droppings and the occasional feather.