I've been reading Deborah Bird Rose's Shimmer, which is about Australian Flying-foxes. She is a wonderful writer and I like her way of seeing the world. This book was written as she was dying of cancer, so as she faces her own mortality she was focusing on the fate of these incredible mammals.
They are in the bat family, but the flying-fox group (mega-bats) are different in that they are all herbivores and pollinators and they forage using sight not echo location.
When I was watching the starlings, it struck me that they, more than any other bird I know, shimmer. The stars on their plumage and the oil-on-water iridescence. I can never really capture this, but I had fun trying.
While I was out there, Chestnut started singing.
He, if he is a he, can't hold a tune. It's more like starling whistles than robin song. Tane was singing like a robin from next door, so they contrast was obvious. I know that Tane is a this year bird - and if Chestnut is Chestnut (or Ash) whom I saw as a chick, so is he or she. Youth can't explain the singing issue. So maybe it is a matter of gender? I read that females do sing but rarely as tunefully as males.
Though it's sad for me not to be able to enjoy much robin-intimacy, maybe if she is a she, she will nest in my garden next year?
Yes, you caught some shimmering. Neat about the flying fox - I suppose they don't need echolocation because their food's not flying around!!