A murmuration of birds

Wow! The past half hour or more my neighborhood was visited upon by at least 500 birds! Because it's fairly warm here today in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, I decided to open the door to air out the house. As I'm sipping my morning tea, I heard this strange noise. There always seems to be construction or maintenance-type vehicles going up and down my small quiet street lately. I decided to look out the door and the sound grew louder. I realized this was not a mechanical sound, but rather - birds. LOTS of birds.

I went out and there they were in my tree and my neighbors' trees on each side. I was fascinated. Then I decided to grab my camera but worried I'd miss them. Not to worry, because when I got back out I realized they were just beginning to descend upon our trees.

 It was quite a show the birds put on. I looked up the name of what this giant flock might be called and decided murmuration sounded familiar to me.

I asked the Ethernet this question: Why do birds form murmurations? I like this comment from the RSPB.org:

We think that starlings do it for many reasons. Grouping together offers safety in numbers – predators such as peregrine falcons find it hard to target one bird in the middle of a hypnotising flock of thousands. They also gather to keep warm at night and to exchange information, such as good feeding areas.

Go here to check out this interesting site in the United Kingdom.

I imagine these were starlings. I came in the house to write this post and - poof! - the sound ended in a split second. They were gone. It was kind of strange how it just instantly ended.

Thanks birdies for the lovely show. Be safe on your journey, wherever it may lead you.

Have you been visited by a murmuration of birds?


Happy Fall gardening, my friends,
~Ann Bailey

Please check out my Etsy shop Pinwheels and Yo Yo's. I have a lot of things coming very soon that would be great gifts for Thanksgiving and Christmas, including great Teacher's gifts!