Murmuration

Spotted a flock of birds over Longmead Road this morning, hardly a full-on murmuration, perhaps a hundred or two of them, and I was not even sure whether they were pigeons or starlings. Not in the same league as those turned up by google by 'mumuration' at all.

But they came to rest in a tree a few yards further along, with much twitttering, and it was clear that they were starlings, not pigeons. As can just about be seen in the snap left if you click to enlarge.

I associated to an episode of Morse where, I think to lighten a murder scene, he talks about murmurations. However, an association which google now fails to confirm, with the best that he can do being '... In an episode of Inspector Morse, Morse asks one of [his] colleagues at the scene of the crime if there is a collective noun for pathologists. They decide on 'a body of pathologists'...'. And even there, I don't get to be told which episode, so it barely counts. Yet another failure of memory?

Oddly, when I heard the same twittering in the same tree a few days ago, I was unable to pick out any of the birds. It would have been about the same time of day, late morning and I fail to see how the quality of light could make that much difference - and I don't think my eyes vary much from day to day.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=gloucester+starlings.