ON SUNNY mornings, starlings return to their territories to keep an eye on them, and they sing softly from chimney pots and television aerials. They may inspect the holes under tiles or behind drainage pipes in which they nested last spring, and even take in a few scraps of nesting material such as dried grass. Their song is a jumble of notes, including sounds like hissing steam and whirring clockwork, penetrating whistles, and occasional melodious trills. Later in the day they join up with other starlings, and the flocks all sing together. At dusk, flocks will fly in from all directions to roost in woods with dense foliage. Starlings used also to roost on the ledges of city buildings, but there are fewer of them doing this now. They are all more speckly-looking in autumn than they were in the spring.
Another bird that roosts communally is the pied wagtail. In the country, they mainly use reedbeds, and the roosts may contain a thousand or more birds. In towns, one may see scores of them coming down from roofs and flitting with their long tails into a tree.
DJM