Where to see starling murmurations

The audience gathers outside the visitor centre as the daylight fades and the evening chill begins to descend. A few warm-up acts keep us entertained – a goosander flying strong and high; a young male marsh harrier swooping down into the reeds next to the lake; flocks of woodpigeons flapping home to roost.

Then it’s time for the main event – the murmuration. The star performers start to arrive. The starlings are in small groups at first, heading in from the south east after spending the day feeding in the farming fields of Lincolnshire and North Nottinghamshire.

We spot a larger shape silhouetted ominously against the darkening sky – a sparrowhawk, threatening to disrupt the display and make the starlings dance to its own tune. Starlings are sweeping in much bigger formations now, but the sparrowhawk melts away, leaving them unharmed – for tonight, at least.

By 4.15pm, the performance has reached its crescendo: tens of thousands of starlings swirling, twisting and plunging in an aerial ballet. Groups join forces and split apart, forming new shapes to fire the imagination – a diving shark, an anvil, a ball, a giant tadpole, smoke appearing to billow from a tree.

A few more minutes and the show is over. The birds funnel into the reedbeds and settle down in giant communal roosts, which help keep them warm and protected during the long, cold winter nights. It’s this final, less spectacular scene that actually gives the display its name: the starlings chatter, or “murmurate” to each other as they bed down to go to sleep.

It’s amazing for us to watch – but what do the starlings themselves get out of it? Safety in numbers is one reason for the mass movements. Potteric Carr abounds in keen-eyed predators. The marsh harrier and sparrowhawk we spotted would love to add a starling to their menu. So would kestrels, peregrines and merlins. By banding together in huge groups and flying in dazzling formations, the starlings aim to mesmerise potential attackers and improve their individual chances of survival.

Some of the most dramatic murmurations occur when raptors launch an attack, trying to pick off individual birds, and the starlings respond with a series of mass diving and twisting manoeuvres.

It’s thought intelligence-gathering may also play a part in murmurations – a way of passing on important information throughout a huge flock.

Even before they arrive at Potteric Carr, these birds have already taken part in an impressive aerial feat: they’ve migrated hundreds of miles from their breeding grounds in Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia to escape from the freezing weather in the milder climate of South Yorkshire. Meanwhile, the starlings that were here during the summer have also been on the move – heading to France, Spain and Portugal for the winter.

Murmurations can be seen at Potteric Carr between October and February, and so far this appears to be a good year for them: one experienced birdwatcher reckons he’s seen more starlings than ever before, with up to 150,000 taking part.

Back home, I look through my photos – most of them taken in ten minutes of frantic snapping as the display reached its climax. I’m surprised to see individual birds appearing as pink, light blue or black dots. Maybe I messed up the camera settings. Maybe it’s a trick of the rapidly-diminishing light on the birds’ iridescent feathers. Or maybe it’s just another bit of murmuration magic.