Skyfull

I escaped the rain that was closing in on Arnside, and chased the clearer skies to Orton following Into The Hills' guidance on where to find the murmuration. This may not be the best of the 300 or so photographs that I took, but it does give an idea of the scale of the starling flock. I'm sure this is the biggest murmuration I have ever seen, and I photographed some enormous gatherings at Leighton Moss five years ago. And amazingly I only took one direct hit as they flew over my head.

In previous murmuration blips I have tried to convey the sensation of experiencing a large murmuration as it wheels, twists and gyrates in the sky, contracting and expanding, flowing like a giant amoeba. It's not just the sight, it is the sound of tens of thousands of wingbeats, and when they are directly overhead, you can feel the movement. There really is no wildlife spectacle in Britain or almost anywhere that compares.

The light was failing fast as they finally settled into the plantation to roost.

You would think that such a spectacle might draw a crowd, but there were only four of us there, and three of them were blippers. Hazelina recognised me as a blipper having spotted Gus sat in the back of the car. And Wharfedalebex also introduced herself. So that meant two blip meets in consecutive days.

I have no doubt I shall go back in the next week or so, though I am tempted to leave the camera behind and just absorb the experience rather than watch it through a camera lens. This did make me wonder what it would have been like to see one of the vast flocks of passenger pigeons in the 19th century, where they literally did blot out the light and it would take hours for an unbroken flock of billions of birds to pass overhead on migration. Alas, there were not too many to survive loss of habitat together with being blasted by hunters, and Martha the last of her species died in captivity in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. It's a cautionary tale.