G. Millais,
watching deer in a park with his glasses, saw a starling remove a fly from
the corner of a deer's eye. When they have run round it, and over it, and
caught all the flies they can there, they rise with a little unanimous
exclamation, and fly on to the next beast. Their winter movements are also
interesting. By day they associate with other birds, mainly with rooks.
Gilbert White thought they did this because the rooks had extra nerves in
their beaks, and were able to act as guides to the smaller birds searching
for invisible food. Probably it is only due to the sociable instinct.
Towards night they nearly always repair in innumerable flocks to some
favourite roosting-place, either a reed-bed or a wood of evergreens, where
they assemble in thousands. One of these communal sleeping-places is the
duck island in St. James's Park. In hard weather they feed on the saltings
and round the shore, especially where rotten seaweed abounds, with great
quantities of insect life in it. At such times they roost in the crevices
of the great sea cliffs. Under Culver Cliff, for instance, they may be
seen flying along the shore and coming in to bed in the frost fog with the
cormorants and other fishers of the deep.
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