By Julie Armstrong

Last updated 11:18, Wednesday, 09 April 2008

SOARING above the Solway Firth, swirling black clouds of starlings pebble-dash the sky as the sun goes down.

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Star spot: Starlings at Skinburness

Thousands have come together in a dusk display at Skinburness to get one last meal before nightfall.

The starlings have been roosting at Silloth airfield over the winter, their numbers swollen by migrants from the north.

Their flocks, known as mumurations, fill the sky at night as they return to the old air hangars to roost.

Norman Holton, RSPB’s senior site manager for the Cumbrian coast, said: “There are a good few thousand of them. They arrived around October time, primarily from the UK.

“They flock together in the winter to take advantage of each other’s body heat. But additional ones do migrate here from Scandinavia if it is an exceptionally cold winter there. They gather together at night to keep warm.”

He said the population in north Cumbria had increased over the past few years.

“Over the previous 20 years their numbers were dropping dramatically, but there seems to have been an upturn. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve had warmer winters,” he said.

“They will be pairing up soon to look for nest sites, and numbers will drop over the next month as they take up breeding territories.”

It is thought many will leave for northern Europe and Russia in the next few weeks.

Starling numbers have halved in the last 25 years.