"Flocks of starlings, rustling like silk"

On morning walks in January we are sometimes lucky enough to have Starlings fly over us. They appear out of nowhere, presumably from nesting on the piers, heading inland. The sound is acute and fleeting, wonderful, and I've never known how to describe it.

Last night, reading The Birds (1952) in Daphne du Maurier's After Midnight, she has the perfect phrase:

Flocks of starlings, rustling like silk, few to fresh pasture [...]

That's it! Seems just right. She really knows how to bang one word after another.

I'll try to remember to listen out and see if the phrase matches my experience, rather than just my memory.

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Coincidentally, over the weekend we heard a bird sound like I've never heard before. Swannee whistle like, perhaps. It was a Starling:

The above is clipped from recording 3 on the Starling Sounds & Sonograms page at Fraser's Birding website.