The starling murmuration is causing ‘carnage’ in Somerset, but there is a simple solution

After an hour of build-up, the chatter of half a million starlings had approached its crescendo. I pulled my binoculars to my eyes and saw a motorway of starlings, whizzing from right to left just above the reeds. Ball bearings drawn to a giant invisible magnet. A wave of poppy seeds, blowing in the wind. The show was about to begin.

I was with Tony Whitehead of the RSPB and my dad, a keen birder and Somerset local. But otherwise, we were alone. Just three people, about to witness one of Britain’s great natural spectacles while the rest of the country was still in bed.

This winter, the caretakers at RSPB Ham Wall are urging more people to do the same, because the popularity of the starlings’ evening performance is creating a raft of problems for the local population.

A mythical landscape, reclaimed by birds

I met Tony a couple of hours before sunrise in a small car park off a waterlogged country lane, with only a crescent moon and a dusting of stars saving us from the grip of total darkness. As we entered the nature reserve we were soon greeted by a recognisable “hooo” – tawny owl for “you’re on my turf now, kids”. But Tony was listening out for a different call.

“They’ve travelled,” he said, listening into the darkness. The previous evening, he had come down and detected two roost flocks. We had reached the site of the smaller one, but this morning it was silent.

“They must have joined the bigger group overnight,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice. This was good news, because it meant hundreds of thousands, perhaps half a million starlings were roosting at one site.

We crossed a footbridge and turned right alongside the Glastonbury Canal, our wellies almost fully submerged in the ink-black puddles created by a recent storm. Overhead, passing wigeons heckled us with a “whoo-whoo”. A water rail cackled from the reeds. Teal whistled from the shadows.

Ham Wall may be a bird’s world now, but this is a landscape battered, scarred and resurrected by the hands of humans. For much of the 20th century, Ham Wall was a peat extraction site. The RSPB took over the land in 1994 and, through careful management and the cultivation of reed beds, has turned it into a utopia for wildlife. Booming bitterns, at the brink of extinction, now thrive at Ham Wall, which is also home to kingfishers, water voles, eels and otters.

We reached the point where Tony believed the larger flock had stopped for the night, and he encouraged us to cup our hands around our ears with our palms facing outwards. Wizardry. A vibration of barely audible chitter was amplified to a chorus of rampant chattering. We had tracked down the starlings, and they were beginning to wake.

The rise of murmuration tourism

Humans have long marvelled at the sight of flocking starlings. In the 1830s, Reverend Edward Stanley described a roost he used to visit at Lymm Dam in Cheshire: “The favourite resort of many persons, who found an additional attraction in watching the gradual assemblage of the starlings.” Two thousand years earlier, the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder marvelled at the murmuration: “It is peculiar to starlings [...] to fly in crowds, and wheel about as if it were a ball,” he wrote.

They have, at times, been viewed as a nuisance too. Through the 20th century starlings would flock in cities in great numbers. Sources from the 1920s describe them roosting on the roof of the British Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1949, a flock of starlings gathered on the minute hand of Big Ben, causing it to briefly stop working. These days, however, starlings are almost entirely absent from urban centres. Indeed the starling has one of the fastest declining populations of any bird species in Britain – numbers dropped by 50 per cent between 1995 and 2016. Habitat loss is a big factor, as is the trend of starlings to “short-stop” on their migratory routes due to warmer temperatures.

Yet, while numbers have dropped, public interest in the murmuration has grown since the turn of the 21st century. In 2005, Bill Oddie memorably conducted a murmuration of starlings with an invisible baton as they flocked above the River Severn for his BBC series Bill Oddie’s How to Watch Wildlife. Carling used footage of a murmuration for an advert in 2006, while a flock filmed by Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith while boating on the Irish Sea has received 11 million views on YouTube.

This popularity will only continue to rise. In its 2025 trends report, the accommodation platform Vrbo says it is seeing an increase of guests travelling to experience top natural phenomena. Alongside the Northern Lights, volcano eruptions and stargazing, Vrbo says the starling murmuration in Somerset will be a top trending experience next year.

So popular is the murmuration that there is an Avalon Marshes “starling hotline” (07866 554 142). It advises where you can see the display, but in the same breath advises to turn around if the car park is full. Indeed, the popularity of the spectacle has caused some problems, locally. Michelle Blackmore, who runs a nearby owl sanctuary, says: “As a local resident, the starlings can bring complete chaos to the area.

“I live about a mile away from the nature reserve and on many occasions, I have had trouble getting home due to silly parking, complete standstills and there is no way an emergency vehicle would have got past. At times, it has been carnage.”

It is for this reason that Tony Whitehead and others from the RSPB are asking people to consider visiting an alternative murmuration site around the country (there are dozens on a scale similar to what you can see in the Avalon Marshes). Or, if you must come to Ham Wall, to consider setting an alarm for an equally wonderful spectacle.

The aurora borealis of the bird world

What makes the morning starling display stand out compared to other big-hitting natural phenomena is that it happens every day in winter, regardless of the weather, and by arriving early and listening for their chittering in the reeds you can track them down with relative ease. Predicting the exact spot of an evening murmuration, by comparison, can be quite tricky.

It was around 20 minutes before sunrise (7.30am, or so) when the show began. After zooming around at the top of the reeds, the starlings began to inch higher. In a singular mass, the flock formed a sort of soundwave, as if dancing to a performance of Mozart only audible to the starling ear.

“Why do they do it?” I asked Tony.

“It’s just in their culture,” he whispered. Some believe starlings flock in this way to stay warm, he explained, while others say that moving in great numbers gives starlings an advantage against predators like the peregrine. It is also believed they flock to share information about where to find food. But how, exactly, the birds move in this way, at such proximity, as if they have morphed into one sentient organism, remains a mystery that scientists continue to study.

Like the flick of a paintbrush, a thought sparking into a stroke of genius, they rose up in a singular cloud – described wonderfully Nordically as “sort sol” (“black sun”) by the Danish. And the sound. It was not that of flesh and feathers, but rather like a cascading waterfall engulfing your senses in surround sound.

The flock dispersed and the starlings revealed themselves as individuals, half a million by Tony’s estimate. But the show wasn’t over. As if in some sort of prearranged synchronised plan, they zoomed at extraordinary speed back to the reeds. A moment or two passed, and thwhoosh. They treated us to an encore, just as ephemeral, explosive and majestic as the last. And then, generously, and to my surprise, a second encore to complete the show. In a matter of minutes, the black sun had dissolved and scattered into the horizon.

Later, the starlings would return to Ham Wall. As would many hundreds of birdwatchers and day-trippers. The evening is, indeed, the best time to experience the murmuration in the swirling, artful, Carling advert manner that exists in the popular imagination. But the morning rise is an entirely unique and equally soul-stirring encounter. If only more people would set their alarms to see it.

How to get there

The RSPB Ham Wall car park has space for 120 cars. There is a second, smaller Natural England car park just around the corner next to the canal. Visitors are advised not to block driveways or park on the verges of the lane, as it can obstruct emergency vehicles.

When to view it

The starling murmuration typically happens from November to February, with the peak months being December and January. After February, migrant starlings return to northern Europe and Scandinavia, while the UK’s resident starlings disperse to breed.

Where to stay

Greg Dickinson stayed at the Gatehouse at Stoberry Park, on the outskirts of Wells, as a guest of Vrbo. The cottage sleeps four and starts from around £250 per night (two night minimum). There are a number of high-quality hotels (notably, The Newt) in the vicinity of the Somerset Levels. Check out the Telegraph’s expert hotel reviews for the best options.