Wednesday, February 10, 2010

First attempt at blogging a video

After a promising start to the year i've turned lazy again. Apart from turning my head towards the shoreline whilst jogging along the front at Baiter park i've not been birding at all. Still, the starling roost in Poole has been good value. This evenings gathering wasnt particualrly impressive numbers wise, but there were a few cool little manoueveres and I happened to have nothing else to do at the time so thought i'd try out the video functionon my digital compact on them. this was shot from my bedroom window a few minutes ago.

2 comments:

DorsetDipper said...

Nice. Any idea why they split up into separate groups? I guess predator avoidance is a key reason for flocking, so why not just one huge flock? Is there an optimum size for a flock? What are the factors that determine flock size? Availability of roosting sites?

Joe Cockram said...

Hi DD
It is a fairly small roost here, limited I guess by the fact that theres only a few small trees to roost in. I couldnt see the casue for the splitting on this occassion but i've seen them do similar when a sparrowhawk passes by a little too close for comfort, like you say, It would seem more sensible to stay together during such moments of peril.