VIDEO. Spectacular: several thousand starlings invade the sky and the roofs of Toulouse
By Leo Couffin
Published on
It looks like a scene from a Hitchcock thriller. Friday, August 19, 2022, at 9:10 p.m., Marie-Catherine opens its window and films several thousand starlings in full flight or installed on the roofs of the district of the Place de la Bourse, in Toulouse.
The presence of these volatiles was observed about twenty minutes. Before they fly off to other horizons.
” It is not the first time ”
Marie-Catherine is perhaps not used to filming thousands of birds at her window. However, this kind of scene, she had already lived it a few years earlier “We observe them towards the end of the year. Mainly around November. »
Installed in rue Clémence-Isaure, this Toulousaine has no not heard of damaged by starlings. “In my street, nothing special happened. We saw some droppings the next day but they didn’t stay very long,” she adds.
A quick start
According to Marie-Catherine, the starlings stayed about twenty minutes at this location. “It wasn’t very long. It seemed like a fairly temporary passage. »
around 9:30 p.m., they all left suddenly: “They took off together. As if we were providing the green light. It was quite impressive to look up in the air,” smiles the resident of this neighborhood.
Since that day, Marie-Catherine has not crossed paths with these starlings.
Avoid predators by staying together
Starlings do not move in groups by chance. Indeed, if they remain by the thousands, it is precisely to avoid a predator attack.
Ghislain Riou, in charge of ornithological and entomological studiesexplained their strategy to Toulouse news in 2019:
This is to protect against predators. Their flight is very adapted to these group movements. They have a much higher reaction time than humans.
And to continue: “They work a bit like a school of fish. They settle in relation to their neighbors, everyone is synchronized, which gives the impression of a very compact group. For a peregrine falcon or a sparrowhawk, it is very complicated to fix a prey under these conditions. »
Held by cities
“There is no particular season to see starlings in the city centre”, it is said side of the Nature Occitanie association. However, it would seem that “these birds gather by the thousands in the city centers because they are in search of heat and light”.
Ghislian Riou also detailed: “It is also an area where there are fewer predators. They seek that security. »
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