STARLING SPECTACLE
Marin birdwatchers thrilled as flock puts on show
Movie theaters are closed and concerts are on hold, but the coronavirus pandemic hasn't stopped nature from putting on a show in northern San Rafael.
Each night at dusk, thousands of birds have been flying in strangely shaped flocks above a graveyard along Highway 101. As they twist and twirl through the sky, onlookers gather below to watch the spectacle, which started about two weeks ago.
“I had never seen anything like that in my life, except maybe on the Discovery Channel or ‘ Animal Planet,'” said Robert Sanford, who drove from his home in east San Rafael to the Northgate mall parking lot to watch the birds Tuesday night.
“You can't even explain it,” said Sanford, who estimated there were hundreds of thousands of birds flying together. “They were just making these bizarre patterns where they would all loop together into a ball, and then they'd make a long strand — really unusual formations.”
It's not the first time that such a show has made its way to San Rafael. Identified by biologists as European starlings, the birds are common in Marin County and occasionally fly around in massive flocks during the winter. In 2007, starlings took up residence for a few weeks at the same San Rafael graveyard where they're gathering this month.
“It's fascinating,” said Judy Edmonson, who manages the Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery on Los Ranchitos Road. “It's like a beautiful dance in the sky.”
When dusk fizzles into dark, the starlings land on the trees that surround the graveyard and stay for the night, Edmonson said. In some cases, they gather in such large clumps that they weigh down tree branches, blocking the roads through the cemetery. At dawn, they fly away.
Much like fish swimming in schools, it's common for birds to fly in flocks, and scientists believe there are several reasons for such behavior, said Roger Harris, a retired bird biologist who lives in Corte Madera. Flying together keeps the starlings warm on winter evenings, it confuses predators and it serves as a tool for the birds to communicate when they have found food or a safe place to roost, he said.
Harris, who heard about the spectacle “through the grapevine,” has gone out to the cemetery three times over the past two weeks to watch the starling flights, which are known as murmurations. All three times, he has noticed a peregrine falcon hunting the birds.
“Each night they would swoop into the starling flock, take a starling and then leave,” he said.
That illustrated another reason the starlings fly in murmurations, Harris said, known as “the selfish herd theory.”
“If you’re in a flock and there’s a predator, your odds of being taken are much lower,” he explained.
Harris, who could not estimate the number of starlings but said there were “way over 10,000,” said it’s unclear whether the birds putting on a show this month live in Marin. He said it’s possible some of them do and others have stopped in the county during migration.
The birds are native to Europe and Asia and were brought to the U.S. in 1890, when somebody released about 100 of them in New York City as part of an effort to introduce all birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s works to Central Park, Harris said. They were first documented in Marin County in 1945, and by 1956, a flock of 2,000 was seen in Novato, which was the largest group at the time, according to the Marin County Breeding Bird Atlas, edited by David Shuford.
Helen Stanley and her husband saw the murmurations for the first time on Monday night and they were so impressed that they invited some friends to join them at the Northgate parking lot on Tuesday. A group of about 12 of them set up folding chairs and sat 6 feet apart as they watched the show, wrapped up in blankets.
“They’re so graceful,” Stanley said. “The sun is setting and it shines off the highest birds, so they kind of have a rosy glow. They just keep circling down and down and then finally land in the trees and start making a lot of noise.”
While dozens of people watched from the mall parking lot on Tuesday night, about 300 drove up to the cemetery for the show, according to Edmonson. Because of the large crowds, she said the cemetery would be closed to bird spectators during the week, but it will be open for starling viewers until 7 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
The murmurations have also caused a stir on Highway 101, with drivers mesmerized by the birds pulling over to watch, said California Highway Patrol Officer Andrew Barclay. On Christmas Eve, somebody called 911 to report that about 20 southbound drivers had stopped in the highway shoulder north of the Lucas Valley Road exit to watch what the caller believed was either a tornado or a swarm of bugs. Barclay urged drivers not to stop or slow down on the highway.