A Murmuration of Starlings

They don't tell you what a Murmuration is on the Wikipedia Page about Starlings. And while problems with starlings in Rome have been mentioned on the BBC, they don't use the word Murmuration either. So what is a Murmuration? Well, it's actually just the collective term for starlings, but the sight of starlings flocking is pretty amazing. Unlike a lot of birds, starlings flock and roost in very large numbers - thousands, if not tens of thousands - and before they go to roost, the flock swirls around the sky - masses of birds moving almost as one, with smaller flocks joining as time goes on. It's an incredibly impressive sight.

And where their starlings are a problem in Rome because of the bird mess, it's not a problem down here, because they go to roost on the remains of the West Pier, so every night over the winter, the locals get an amazing display just after the sun goes down, and last night was no exception.

So why am I writing a blog post about it? Well, it's not music, so it must be photography. The full set of my photos from last night are here, but main reason for the post is that I finally got a photo on Flickr Explore, which is their view on the Most Interesting photos. Just to give you an idea of numbers, according to Flickr just now, over 2,500 photos have been uploaded in the last minute, so to have one of mine picked as one of the 500 most interesting photos is quite an accolade. Flickr don't say what their criteria are for an "interesting photo", I guess because if they did, they'd have loads of photos contriving to become one, but I'm pleased that whatever those criteria are, mine fulfilled them :)