Swoop Club

Every winter's evening, starlings flock to roost in the reedbeds of the Somerset Levels. Nothing unusual about birds roosting except, in this case, the numbers involved. It is said that about 3 million gather at dusk, swirling and swooping over a large nature reserve between Glastonbury and Bridgwater.

We went to view the spectacle on a clear and windless evening. It really is a sight you have to experience, as it is impossible to give an accurate sense of it in words.

Imagine the sky being thick with black dots, suddenly dimming the light as they pass overhead. Think of the whoosh of hundreds of thousands of wings beating simultaneously. Hear the sound of a million or two starlings chattering together, once they have settled in trees or on reeds.

It is an amazing experience, and one that is perhaps not publicised extensively for fear of the effect of an overwhelming increase in visitors. For the location is deep in the Levels, reached along bumpy single-track drove roads with a completely inadequate single car park at the reserve.

The event starts with the arrival of the first thin lines of birds. Then it quickly builds up, with massive flocks arriving from all directions, and merging together to form giant fluid helix patterns in the sky. The starlings' aerial flightpaths all seem locked on this one location. We wondered how far some had come.

The birds gather to provide commual warmth and protection from predators. Then in the morning, the daily commute starts back to their day-time haunts.