It's one of winter's most amazing spectacles - thousands of starlings mumurating before they roost for the night.

Photographer Sam King of digitalreef.co.uk captured this footage over Studland on Saturday night.

Starlings are believed to mumurate for many reasons, although scientists are not entirely sure how they manage to fly in such precision.

One of the reasons for the aerial stunts is thought to be that grouping together offers safety in numbers – predators find it hard to target one bird in the middle of flock of thousands.

They are thought to also gather to keep warm at night and to exchange information. 

Further into Purbeck, this time lapse, of Corfe Castle emerging from the fog, was taken by Naturehawk Photography at the end of December.