Artescape Photography

Photographing Starlings over Brighton Pier

I had a great afternoon and evening's photography in Brighton a couple of weeks ago.  I travelled to Brighton with a party of fellow photographers with the goal of photographing the huge flocks of Starlings that congregate over one or other of Brighton's Piers.  As you are probably aware, once the Starlings have formed themselves into a large flock they zoom around  forming and reforming awe-inspiring patterns in the sky.  It was these patterns that we were here to photograph. This flocking behaviour is called "murmation" and it's performed to confuse predators. The huge number of birds flying together make it very hard for a predator to pick out a single individual.   (Which they like to do).  The best time to photograph this behaviour is mid-winter when the flocking is at it's height.  November through to about February is the time to go.

I had checked the weather forecast the night before.  Luckily it turned out to be spot on. Clear skys and not too cold. This was very important as the Starlings tend not to perform when the weather's bad.  Having set up between Brighton's main pier and the ruined West Pier it was  just a case of waiting and hoping.   You never know what wildlife subjects are going to do. We had hoped the Starlings would perform thier aereal ballet over the West pier. That was not to be. All the action took place over palace Pier.  It was a good job we had set up between the two piers. It was a case of quickly re-composing the shot and firing away.

After twenty minutes it was all over.  What a spectacle!  The journey down was well wortht it. With some interesting images in the bag it was time for a warm drink and home.