A Mump and a Murmuration

Tags

Avalon Marshes, Barrow Mump, Burrowbridge, Ham Wall, King Alfred Inn, murmuration, National Trust, RSPB, Somerset, Somerset Levels, starling

I’ve tried to find a female equivalent of ‘avuncular’, but, although there are suggestions on line, there is no such word authenticated by common, or even rare, usage. Anyway, I had an auntly visit for the two nights either side of Christmas Day, and we fully exploited the lovely day that was to be outdoors.

A short, sunny, very local morning walk, with Glastonbury Tor to our left (on the outward leg) went unrecorded as far as images are concerned, but it made a good start to the day. After a light lunch, conscious that daylight would not last long, we drove across the moors (formerly known as the Somerset Levels, now renamed the Avalon Marshes) to Burrowbridge, where the King Alfred Inn was the headquarters of the unofficial relief operations during the terrible flooding in 2014. We parked at the National Trust car park, and I offered young-in-heart B. the chance to climb up Barrow Mump, a sort of mini Glastonbury Tor.

She was game. (She always is.) I really should have thought ahead and suggested she put on trousers.

We took a gently spiral route, and looked back from time to time at flooded fields, a normal phenomenon at this time of year. Somerset is thought to mean ‘Land of the Summer People’, from the time before the Levels were drained, and people lived on the ‘islands’ in the winter, grazing their cattle on the flat lands in the summer only.

Some people think that this sort of selfie is just not on (private joke).

It was VERY muddy and even more slippery.

Two-thirds of the way up

We made it just a little further

Coming down

Looking back, we saw that some people made it to the top.

It was not for lack of energy that we decided to abandon our target, but because it just became so difficult and dangerous underfoot. We thought that discretion was the better part of valour. Indeed, we were pretty pleased with our achievement.

A backward look at the ruined church from the car park.

The low sun was getting lower , and I was very aware that these were ideal conditions to see the starlings coming in to roost, since it is only in clear skies that they do their amazing murmurations, their swirling and whirling to avoid attacks by birds of prey. (I presume the latter do not hunt in cloudy conditions.) Otherwise they just arrive where they have decided to settle for the night and go straight down to bed.

I had rung the starling hotline, which tells you where our local starlings have settled the previous night. (They come in numbers to feed in my garden during the day!) It is not guaranteed, but likely that they will choose the same place, out of three possibilities, the following night. By a series of questions during the ten-minute drive to what I made a mystery destination, B. managed to work out where, or at any rate why, we were going. We found many people already gathered at RSPB Ham Wall. Ten minutes later the starlings started to arrive. And to murmurate, possibly the best I have ever seen there.

Those were all taken towards the north-east. The rest are to the south-east.

We stayed for about half an hour, and could have stayed for the same time again to see all the stragglers in. The light was going fast and the birds were still streaming in as we left.

I was, as they say, right chuffed, that nature had laid on this spectacle. B. had not visited Somerset for eight years, so this was real treat for both of us.

Starlings at Ham Wall

Tags

Ashcott, Avalon Marshes, Canada goose, coot, Glastonbury Tor, Great white egret, Ham Wall, mallard, murmuration, pochard, rhyne, RSPB, Shapwick Heath, Somerset Wildlife Trust, Stephen Moss, swan

I hadn’t been to see the local starling murmuration this winter, so yesterday mid-afternoon I decided to rectify that.  It’s always chancy, and for a good display the ideal weather is clear skies. Yesterday there was mainly thin cloud, but I knew that the birds would soon be migrating back to their north European breeding grounds, and I might not have many more chances.  The Avalon Marshes starling hotline informed me that the previous night the starlings had roosted at both Ham Wall and Shapwick Heath, each accessible from the same RSPB car park at Ashcott, (recently created, to the great relief of those using the nearby country road from which the reserves are accessible.)

Once there, I decided, I’m not sure why, to go east along the rhyne (pronounced ‘reen’) or drainage ditch, making for Ham Wall, rather than westwards to Shapwick Heath.    I made my way slowly to the main viewing platform, 400 metres down the path, enjoying what other birds were to be seen on the reserve, as night started to fall.

Glastonbury Tor in the distance

The water levels are carefully managed with sluices

En route I observed Stephen Moss, naturalist, author and TV producer, and President of the Somerset Wildlife Trust, with a small group of people, and I reckoned I must have made the right decision as to direction.  Once I was at the platform, the Avalon Marshes representative advised going on another 600 metres, as a thousand starlings had already  made their way in that direction.  “There’s another half million due, and earlier on in the season there were a million here, but they’ve started leaving.  We have had as many as five million in years gone by.”

On maximum zoom, in the far distance from the viewing platform, a great white egret, a species that has just begun to breed in the UK.

I walked on the extra distance, taking more photos.

When I’d gone the 600 metres, I was not alone – this was about a third of the people gathered there.

I moved slightly away and lower, to the bank of the rhyne, where there were fewer people. It wasn’t long before I became aware of birds streaming way up high over my left shoulder.  They were all making their over to the north and doing a bit of their murmuring there, but at a low level and not very photographable.  But I got a few pictures over the next 20 minutes or so.

Then they were gone, into the reeds, for the night.  The moon was up, behind the cloud,

and it was time to wander back to the car park, along the rhyne.

Tardy small groups of starlings continued to fly over my head for a little while to join their roosting companions. How do they know where to go? What more pleasant way to spend a late afternoon? Why don’t I visit one of the UK’s most famous nature reserves, just 20 minutes from where I live, more often?

I’ve just rung the starling hotline again.  Yesterday the starlings only roosted at Ham Wall.  Good call.