(Editor's Note: Michael Givant is a Woodbury resident and an associate professor of sociology at Adelphi University.)

In the fall you may occasionally see large flocks of starlings bending across the sky. These 8-inch, yellow-billed birds with dark bodies speckled with white were first successfully introduced in the US in Central Park in 1890. A description of the starling in a 1936 book says: "It is a very hardy, muscular, and powerful bird... It is exceedingly tough and wiry, and the bill, its principal weapon of offense and defense, is superior in shape to that of the crow. It is nearly straight, long and heavy, tapering, and nearly as keen as a meat ax, while the skull that backs it is almost as strong as that of a woodpecker." The name, which means "little star," is derived from the bird's appearance in its fall plumage. I think of these birds as stars of the fall landscape.

Their theatrical stage is the hard light and shadows of autumn with a breeze blowing through trees. For no apparent reason they come on the wings of the wind, drawn into tree branches like so many dark magnetized particles. They come in flocks and leave in flocks. In between they sing, a mass of voices in trees. They are fall's enchanting avian mystery.

Two years ago on a November morning as I was standing by our kitchen table, three hundred ink black birds came in waves swooping out of the crisp sunny morning sky and landed on adjacent trees and lawns. The birds were a mixed group of grackles and starlings. The black diamond shaped tails of the grackles, spread as they landed, were riveting. The scene resembled Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds as they massed on adjacent lawns and trees. In the group closest to me I could see little nuts in the bills of the grackles as their iridescent green heads moved up and down and their yellow eyes blazed. I had been barefoot perusing the newspaper when the birds swept in but quickly put on sneakers and followed them down a long corridor lined with yellow leaves between houses in our condo.

They landed on the top branches of some trees spread out like black medieval harbingers. Then some flew in clockwise waves to a tree near me. Standing under the tree suddenly small acorns start to rain down. Plat, plat, plat, they land on the ground all around me as the birds suddenly fly off. Then from across the road there is a sound like a ship's canvas sail snapping in the wind as the flock again flies from tall treetops. The birds may have been mainly grackles with starlings mixed in. I'll never know but I haven't been able forget the fifteen minutes of magic they brought.

Several mornings later there are again starlings, perhaps 800 of them. This time I can tell by the wing pattern curved in front and straight in the back that they are starlings. They are spread out in the treetops not far from our house. Their singing is background sky music. I walk toward them, the lone human in sight, looking down to adjust my binoculars. Suddenly the music stops. I look up to see them just lift off joining a small group which had flown scant seconds before. Did I get too close or was their flight just coincidental? They bent, flowed and spread out like an umbrella in the sky until becoming a small speck disappearing over Jericho Turnpike.

The next morning again the starlings were back. Hundreds of dark wedges with fast flapping wings; they rose vertically over rooftops. A few times other flocks join them as they now start to fill the milky sky. It is eerie watching how they all start to turn like a slow-moving viscous liquid in a glass paperweight. When they leave they take their magic with them and the scene is dull. This time I thought there were at least 500 of them. My wife watching from a window thought that there were thousands.

Leaving work one recent afternoon I passed by a tall berry-filled bush when two dozen starlings alighted not far overhead, their wings sounding like a whisper. Those that remained on the branches displayed iridescent green beneath their speckled breasts. They bent their heads plucking berries, which disappeared into their bills even more quickly than they'd been plucked. I'd never before seen what they ate. Another afternoon near home I watched a group dance into a tree and disappear into the leaves. One starling perched on a branch had tiny feathers, like chin whiskers under its lower mandible. As its beak opened slightly a high sound came out. Delightful.

A few weeks ago the waning afternoon sun cast hard black shadows on the cold ground. A few starlings perched at the top of a tree still aglow in light. Rust-colored leaves hung from its branches like thin pieces of burnished metal. The starlings' white speckles glowed against their dark bodies. They looked around almost placidly. Some of the bird's wings and lower backs appeared dark tan. They weren't singing and the dozen or so come and go singly or in twos and threes. I look closer at what I think is one of the starlings and see a thin band of yellow across its tail and a Cleopatra eye. This is no starling but rather a cedar waxwing. There are about eight of them using the tree for a short stop. Only one of the starlings remains preening itself. A short while later as we leave the house, twilight is just beginning and the starlings are gone. A full moon is making its way through a dense thicket of trees in sky. "It's a harvest moon," says my wife as autumn's curtain comes down on this afternoon's starling performance.