The morphing motion of flocking starlings is one of the UK’s most hypnotic wildlife spectacles. Julie Brominicks picks six of the best places to see them
01 ABERYSTWYTH PIER, CEREDIGION
You might hear them before you see them – a thrilling whoosh above Aberystwyth (Heol y Wig in Welsh). Clusters of people gather along the seafront, silently respectful, as the sky pales to lilac then deepens. Some 30,000 starlings swirl in from their coastal feeding grounds to roost beneath the iron-latticed pier.
02 DRUMHONEY HOLIDAY PARK, LISNARICK, COUNTY FERMANAGH
Belfast City Centre hosts the largest roost in Northern Ireland, but a new murmuration was reported in January 2022 above a caravan park at the edge of Lower Lough Erne. The lough contains 40 islands and is also home to wintering birds, such as scaups, great crested grebes, whooper swans and wigeons.
03 NEWPORT WETLANDS, NEWPORT
Keep watch for bearded tits and wintering bitterns at the largest wetlands in Wales, with a visitor centre, accessible trails and boardwalks. The reserve was created to counter habitat loss from the development of Cardiff Bay. The murmuration of about 50,000 is visible across the reserve, before the starlings drop into the reeds.
04 GRETNA GREEN, DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
This mobile roost of about a million birds is usually seen just west of Gretna, on the border with Cumbria. The landscape here is sparsely populated, with for
