Starlings.

We have only had two starlings here - beautiful birds. We have lots of sparrows doing just what you describe and some lovely blackbirds, a few robins and once a year a pair of song thrushes take to our Rowan Tree. Apart from the usual pigeons, magpies and once a summer influx of house martins nothing else despite having three feeders with fat balls and seeds Lot of cats round here though grrrrrr.

I live near the south coast and actually on the South Downs.

We get a lot of starlings as they roost and fly (what do they call the starling acrobatics? Senior moment) all around the piers and marina at night, then fly into the Downs and fields during the day.

Yesterday walking on the Downs I watched the families digging for grubs and feeding their noisy young.

Is it a. Murmuration?

Yes we have little mobs of starlings that show up this time of year. They rear their young and take off again after eating us out of bird food!
Our resident blackbirds and robins tend to take a back seat for a while but don't desert us.

I put a block of suet stuff in a camellia bush (to keep away from seagulls), mealworms on a bird table with roof extended to keep gulls off, niger seed in feeder and sunflower seeds in feeder.
I regularly get about 4 goldfinches (plus have seen one young one) on both feeders. Blue tits and chaffinches come occasionally. There's a pair of great tits nesting in one of our boxes and they're busy backwards and forwards to the suflower seeds. A couple of male blackbirds use the bird table and I have spotted 3 young ones ground feeding. A couple robins use the sunflower seed feeder and now there are 3 babies too. Wood pigeons devour anything that falls from the table or feeder, unfortunately they are flattening the flower bed and will probably move to the veg area as it grows
I notice a solitary starling appears to 'check out' the feeding area and return with more pals if the bird table is full. Yesterday I saw a young one all alone - hopefully it had been introduced to the buffet beforehand. Also house sparrows and dunnocks fliting about. Beautiful long-tailed tits visit infrequently. I haven't seen a thrush for years tho.

I've counted at least 25 in our garden this year, eating scraps, whatever they find in the lawn, and then in the bird bath. They seem to disappear later in the summer when the babies have grown. We are on the edge of the S Staffs countryside.

Yes! Murmuration! Thanks flo

We’re in Somerset and regularly have a good 50 little starlings plus adults plundering the bird food. Poor sparrows (usually they come by the dozen) aren’t getting a look in and the blackbird nesting in a shrub is seriously displeased .

Starlings have been nesting in our soffits for years. When we had the fascias and soffits replaced a couple of years ago we asked the company doing the job to make holes in the ends and section off the end part. That way the starlings still had somewhere to nest but couldn't gallop up and down the length of the house in the early hours of the morning. They're making good use of the 'nest boxes' and are busy feeding families now.

I filmed a murmuration here a few years ago, but haven't seen a good one recently, so numbers would seem to be down despite our efforts to provide nest sites.

Septimia they nest in our soffits too, and are very active around the time it starts getting light! DH doesn’t hear them running up and down but they are like an unwelcome alarm clock for me! Then they sit on the tv aerial chirping. They are the most amazing mimics.

Here in my small patch of rural South Northamptonshire, I am seeing far more starlings this year than I have ever seen in any of the previous twenty-odd years that we have lived here! I made that very comment to OH only a few days ago.

I haven't seen starlings in years. They used to congregate in huge flocks in and above the local park.
I miss them and wonder if it's agricultural practices to blame.
I noticed round up is still being used around here despite being carcinogenic.

We have lived here for 7 years (North Cotswolds) and I've never seen a single starling. So, although we have lots of other lovely birds (I just had a siskin on the bird feeder), I envy you your starlings!

We saw them often in France - fascinating:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mobH0Ix8z8
I see one or two here, but nowhere like the number there used to be.

I'm in the SE and had about 20 starlings around the feeders an hour or so ago, their numbers definitely haven't dropped round here. Must admit I get annoyed with them for frightening the small birds away, noisy devils! The young have to be the laziest birds ever, sitting on the fence right by the feeders, but mouth open waiting for mum and dad to feed them, when they're almost the same size.