On 5/3/06, mike wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Never seen a flock of several hundred thousand (or maybe even into seven figures...) wheeling around for 20 minutes before roosting? On of (if not _the_) Northern hemisphere's most spectacular wildlife displays. Individually, they are bungholes of the first order, although this one is pretty altruistic, what with feeding the poor orphan blackbird chicks...
<snip> You talking about starlings? Actually, about 20 years ago I got to view a fairly spectacular display by the little blighters. IIRC, it was maybe late September or early October, and I was going to school back then. I had to walk a mile or two through a field to get to a street to meet my ride (I was going to school in a different city). It seems that Kitchener, Ontario was along their migration root. because all you could hear was them screaming in the trees at about 7 or 8 am. The trees were literally laden with them. At night they came down from the north, in a thick black line, stretching as far as the eye could see. By the time my ride came to get me at 8am, they were out of their trees, streaming south, again in a long, thick, black line stretching beyond the southern horizon. Quite amazing to see and hear. I still hate them. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
