Abstract
FOR some years, enormous numbers of starlings have taken to roosting on the ledges of buildings in central London, where they spend the winter nights in safety on such buildings as the National Gallery, Somerset House, St. Paul's and Covent Garden. In Edinburgh, similar hordes frequent the roof-ledges of the General Post Office and other buildings in the neighbourhood. The winter population of starlings in large towns must be unbelievably large, yet it appears still to be increasing. In the report for 1933 of the Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in Royal Parks (England), C. S. Bayne states that in 1933 (for the first time) starlings roosted on Duck Island in St. James's Park without an interval. In the first week of May, when winter roosts are usually deserted, he counted there eight thousand of them; but the numbers were greatest in autumn before the usual contingents moved in November to-take up their winter quarters in Trafalgar Square. It is a matter of some interest to know whence come the starlings that flock to London at night, and R. W. Hale has discovered one of the sources. He has watched the birds feeding on and near Hendon Sewage Farm, and has seen them leave there in flocks about two hours before sunset. The flight of the flocks he has tapped at Cricklewood Lane, Finchley Road Station, Lord's and Baker Street Station. A line drawn through these points and extended passes through Trafalgar Square, so the slightest deviation from this would bring theni over St. James's Park, and some of the largest flocks which settle in St. James's Park come from that quarter.
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Starlings in London. Nature 135, 18 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135018c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135018c0
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