10000 Starlings

The spring sky is scarred with a monstrous mass of birds breaking in waves like an undulating cloud of black. You can barely hear your own voice above the overwhelming volume these little birds produce when swimming in the sky together. There is nothing to be done but sit and wait with ears covered until the flock finishes pecking the earth and moves away to descend upon some other unsuspecting and defenseless patch. Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. They have strong feet, their flight is strong and direct, and they are very gregarious. Their preferred habitat is fairly open country, and they eat insects and fruit. Several species live around human habitation, and are effectively omnivores. Many species search for prey such as grubs by "open-bill probing", that is, forcefully opening the bill after inserting it into a crevice, thus expanding the hole and exposing the prey. Starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations, and have been known to embed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms, and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize particular individuals by their calls, and are currently the subject of research into the evolution of human language. Most species associate in flocks of varying sizes throughout the year, these flocks may include other species of starlings and sometimes species from other families. This sociality is particularly evident in the their roosting behaviour; in the non-breeding season some roosts can number in the thousands of birds. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/127564/