Belfast’s best loved starling murmurations are returning to full strength after work to minimise light pollution, conservationists have said.
The sight of thousands of starlings flying together above the Albert Bridge throughout the autumn and winter has long attracted crowds to enjoy and even inspired decorations on street benches in the area.
However conservationists became alarmed across 2021 and 2022 as the number of starlings in the displays every evening at dusk started to fall.
Colin Shaw of Wild Belfast said by winter 2022 the number had dropped from several thousand to around a dozen.
The group believe that new lights installed under and around the bridge were having an impact.
He described the lighting at that stage in the area as “like Las Vegas”.
After lobbying the group succeeded in securing some compromises to minimise the light pollution.
This included switching off lights underneath the bridge when they were not required, placing red filters on lights at the side of the bridge and black screens on the lanterns on the bridge.
“There was no guarantee the birds were going to return, by that stage we were down to about a dozen birds wheeling about the skies, in and under and bridge,” he told the PA news agency.
“Obviously the lighting isn’t there just for the craic, there’s health and safety concerns or issues, lights required for navigation for people using the river and also for a maintenance works.
“So, what we started looking at what we could mitigate.
“It was a coin toss, we weren’t sure it was going to work.
“To be fair the public bodies involved were very proactive and wanted to help despite there being no guarantee.
“Towards autumn 2023 various part of that work were completed.
“That lessens the cumulative light burden.
“We waited on tenterhooks throughout October and November to see if the birds would come back. We started to see some really nice signs on social media that there were bigger murmurations than we had had in 2021/22.
“As of our last few visits the starlings are back at the 2018/19 levels, and we’re getting thousands of birds, so it looks like the birds are back and we’re obviously delighted about that.”
Starling murmurations are mostly seen at dusk during the autumn and winter in Northern Ireland when numbers are boosted by migrant starlings escaping the colder temperatures in Scandinavia.
Mr Shaw said they happen for a number of reasons, including the birds minimising heat loss, deterring predators and communication.
While Wild Belfast is celebrating the return of the starlings, Conor McKinney from the group has pressed Belfast City Council to secure space for wildlife in their local development plan.
“Belfast City Council has the potential to protect local wildlife across the city and zoning areas them for nature conservation,” he said.
“It doesn’t entirely prevent development, but it does make it more difficult for a developer to develop those areas.
“While the strength of the zoning isn’t perfect, it is very much something we want the council to look at utilising more within the local development plan process.
“What happened at Albert Bridge may not have happened if it was zoned for conservation.
“Likewise there are other sites that have no protection whatsoever.
“We need to be better at recognising where locally important wildlife sites are and we would encourage people to engage with that process and put their sites forward to be protected for wildlife as part of that process, and we also need to be much more aware of chronic and pervasive impact that light pollution has not just on us, but also on wildlife.
“Development doesn’t have to come at the expense of wildlife.
“There’s a lot of good case studies where it actually contributes towards the conservation of species, but we need to be much better at it.”
