Feathered Hordes

The habits of the continental and British starlings, their symbiotic relationship with the countryside and the problems they can cause in towns and cities.

Narration over footage of large flocks of starlings - continental starlings from northern Europe that have come to Britain for the winter. Their numbers double in the United Kingdom over the winter, to some 20 or 30 million, and there can be 1 million in a single roost. The destruction left by such large numbers of starlings is in the form of rotting vegetation. Starlings that are feeding on the snow-covered ground are covered by a net, and as the narrator explains, are then ringed and numbered for study purposes. Shots of the male and the female in close-up showing the subtle differences in their eyes, beaks and feathers that help to establish their sex and origin. At the Marconi Radar Laboratory at Bushy Hill, Essex, a scanner picks up all movement, both of traffic, and the movement of starlings - aided by the time-lapse equipment inside the laboratories that photograph and thus record the number of birds. In springtime, the British starlings collect food from the grass. Two territorial male rivals fight, resulting in one of their deaths. The mating and nesting behaviour is shown, and the young starlings hatch and demand feeding - although are not able to digest a lizard brought by a parent. As the starlings are shown to mature, they learn to feed themselves away from their nest, scavenging on the grass. In June, the nuclear families break up and the young starlings live communally, finding a rich source of food by the sewage works at Colchester, foraging in the earth. Fairground music continues over shots of the starlings sitting on the moving water filter arms. The starlings roost and flock over a reed bed and radar pictures then show the circular wave patterns of the starlings' movement. Birmingham City Centre, where starlings have chosen to settle - roosting in an urban not rural setting, possibly because towns are warmer, causes problems for the town's authorities, due to the bird mess. Measures are taken to protect buildings; these include: running electric wires around the buildings or placing a strip of a plastic substance on ledges, discouraging but not harming the roosting birds. The starlings are shown to have their uses. They feed on grassland where they clear the area of pests. Full seasonal circle and the continental starlings return in their flocks for the winter. Again, radar pictures show the starlings' immigration movement, this time, from east to west. The final scenes show the starlings, in large flocks, in roost and also in flight.

Featured Buildings

City Cathedral, Birmingham

Keywords

Birds; Starlings

Other Places

Birmingham; Bushy Hill; Colchester