Jan 162015
 

Birds on a Wire

Flock No2 ©2014 April Siegfried

For three days I watched this flock gather each morning on the same set of poles and wires, and stay into the afternoon. (The overflow crowd spilled onto the next set of poles down the road.)

A cashier in the local drugstore said they’d been doing that for a couple of days before I arrived in Asheville to visit family for the holidays.

On the fourth day the birds were gone.

What you can’t hear through this image was the noise of their constant chatter. It was an astonishing, wondrous experience!

Nov 112011
 

{click image to view large}

To watch this flock dance along the ground and in the air was a glorious gift yesterday!

I think now what I saw was a “mini” mumuration of starlings. A Flickr contact pointed me to this (two minute) video which shows their ballet on a grand scale:  Murmuration of Starlings in Ireland.

Nikon D300; f5.6 @ 1/350 sec, ISO 250 (handheld);
18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 200mm (300mm EFL); focus distance 33.5m