An estimated 92,000 Starlings flew into roost this evening at Allcombe Water this evening. Included a couple of good murmurations. Numbers are notoriously difficult to count accurately at this site as birds usually come in fast from two different directions. Nevertheless this is well down on my usual recent counts of well over 100,000. December and January tend to be the peak months for high counts here. Myself and David Ballance checked the other known roost site at Litton in mid December last year but this yielded a rather disappointing total of about 3000 birds flying to roost there.

Birds normally start arriving early November at these sites and by late November roost sites can be full. By late February birds are leaving in appreciable numbers. The Litton birds feed during the day in Devon. Given the numbers of Starlings that can be found on a casual basis during the day on Exmoor it is entirely possible that there is another roost site we don’t know about or not easy viewable from the roads. It still remains one of the great sights of Exmoor watching thousands of Starlings whooshing over your head.