Alerted by a post on the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust website, I went to look at another Gloucester Starling roost today. GWT says there is a roost “in the Bristol/Stroud Road area”. I found quite large numbers circling in the Tuffley Avenue area from about 16h45. There seem to be (at least) two roosts- one smaller one of perhaps 1,000 birds near Tuffley Crescent, which after much quiet circling, finally landed and started chirping in a small group of three or four tallish thickly vegetated conifers (cypresses, I think) in a back garden. They once again attracted the attention of a passing Sparrowhawk, which again failed to catch any Starlings, before diving into the conifers. A local resident said they hadn’t been roosting there long. There appeared to be another, larger roost somewhere towards Linden Road, which I’ll find another day.
Are these roosts present all through the winter? Or do they gather only in late winter, just before the birds depart on migration to breeding grounds in eastern and northern Europe?