Here’s a school of thought about starlings

I was woken early the other morning by the sound of starlings.

They’re not the quietest of birds at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of times. Apart from the continual shouting and screaming, they were landing on the roof above my head and stamping around on the slates. Then some decided to land on the gutter outside the bedroom window, which is made of aluminium, and scrape their claws against the metal.

I got up, I hadn’t a lot of choice, made a cup of coffee and went outside to find out what was going on. The birds’ behaviour was quite odd. There were 60 or 70 of them and they were taking off from the roof and a tree beside the house and flying about 50 metres into an uncut hay meadow where they landed. They immediately took off again and flew back to the house.

There were some noisy discussions about what they had done and then the whole procedure was repeated a few minutes later. They didn’t take off as a flock but flew in a sort of ‘follow-my-leader’ fashion behind each other in small groups of about half a dozen. They weren’t feeding, there was no time for that, just endlessly repeating what appeared to be a pointless manoeuvre.

I settled down to watch. Nothing in nature is ever pointless. There had to be some good reason for this behaviour.

With the help of my binoculars I fairly soon discovered something that was likely to be relevant. All the birds were juveniles. They were a dull brown with untidy plumage, none of the shiny sleekness of an adult starling. And, though they could fly, they weren’t very good at it. Their descent from the roof to the field was in a straight line or a gentle curve and there was much unnecessarily vigorous wing flapping. Adult starlings are masters of flight, these were apprentices.

I watched them when they came back to the roof and the tall elder tree beside it. They paid no attention to myself or the dog, even when we were only a few metres away. They spent their time hopping up to other birds and engaging in noisy, close range ‘conversation’. A few times I saw one juvenile beg for food from another. This never worked. There wasn’t any food.

The whole thing went on for a couple of hours and then they disappeared, presumably to find something to eat. But they came back for a few hours the following morning and for several days afterwards, though I haven’t seen or heard them for the last couple of mornings.

I was intrigued. I associate starling flocks with the winter. Up to now I hadn’t realised that juvenile birds flock in the early summer. I assume this flock consisted of the first broods of the year from a large part of the surrounding area. Starlings aren’t that common around here, at least not until the winter migration arrives in. Their parents were probably busy having a second brood.

I have a theory, but it’s only a theory. If anyone can come up with a better one I’d love to hear it. I think this was a school and the adolescent starlings were learning two things.

The first was flying skills, particularly skills at flying in formation which would be vital to them when the winter flocks formed. They were putting in the hours to get their pilot’s licence.

The second was the social skills necessary for survival in a large flock.

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