Moon cycle:
- New Moon: 20th November 2025
- Full Moon: 4th December 2025
- New Moon: 19th December 2025
Traditional names
The names we generally use in the northern hemisphere for the different moons are based upon a blend of Native American culture and western European tradition. Indigenous peoples of North America use names evocative of falling temperatures and the arrival of winter: Mohawk ‘Cold Moon’; Mohican ‘Long Night Moon’; Cree ‘Drift Clearing Moon’, ‘Frost Exploding trees Moon’ and ‘Hoar Frost Moon’; Haida and Cherokee ‘Snow Moon’; Dakota ‘Moon when the Deer Shed their Antlers’; Oglala Sioux ‘Moon of the Popping Trees’; Abenaki ‘Winter Maker Moon’; Anishinaabe ‘Little Spirit Moon’. Ancient Pagan and Anglo-Saxon traditional names include ‘Moon before Yule’, and the Celtic Druid ‘Oak Moon’ is associated with the enduring strength of their sacred oak tree. In the southern hemisphere, common names for the December moon indicate seasonal changes in economy, commerce and observances as the days grow longer, temperature rises and new growth begins, including ‘Strawberry Moon’, ‘Honey Moon’ and ‘Rose Moon’.
However, perhaps the most well-known name celebrates an animal that has seen a revival in its fortunes over the years, particularly in the UK. They live close to freshwater; they can grow up to just under a metre in length and they can weigh up to 38kg. Want another clue? Justin Bieber! Bieber is German for beaver – and it is the beaver who we celebrate now.
‘Murmuring Moon’
We propose an alternative full moon name for December: the ‘Murmuring Moon’. Winter is a time when most of the natural world seems to pause, rest or sleep. Yet above us, something miraculous still moves — vast flocks of starlings swirling and rippling in unison through the winter sky. ‘Murmuration’ is the word for the mesmerising, shape-shifting clouds of starlings that gather before roosting. In the fading light, thousands of these small birds perform their aerial ballet, a perfect symbol for the living connections between individuals and their environment. While ‘Cold Moon’ reminds us of the season’s chill, ‘Murmuring Moon’ draws attention to movement, cooperation and collective resilience. Both belong together: the cold stillness of the season, and the pulse of life that persists through it.
Photo © Sharon Witt
Starlings – birds with a tricky image
In the UK, starlings have been maligned for being too visible, too noisy and too successful — traits that clash with human preferences for quiet, tidy and well-behaved wildlife. Starlings appear in the news for the wrong reasons — disruptive roosts, droppings, noise or crop damage. British culture tends to romanticise rarer, quieter garden birds — robins, goldfinches and blackbirds. Starlings, by contrast, are loud and pushy, and they squabble at feeders.
Noticing starlings as beautiful birds – it’s time to pay attention
In the UK, despite the vast numbers in murmurations, starlings are at risk. The RSPB’s 2025 Big Garden Birdwatch recorded the lowest number of starlings ever seen in the annual survey. This survey finding mirrors long-term studies showing a significant decline in starlings, with an 82% drop in the UK breeding population between 1970 and 2022. The starling is on the UK’s red list, indicating it is of high conservation concern.
Reflecting and learning with the murmuring moon and all wintery beings
Found poetry is an arts-based practice, which can be used in the presentation of post-qualitative research. The author collects and curates words, phrases, quotes and ideas found during data collection – sources may include readings, signage, snippets of texts, conversations, and lyrics. It is a form of word gathering and composing.
This found poem brings together relational starling and moon stories, gathered from sensory, embodied, and affective encounters with murmurations and full moons, as well as descriptive phrases shaped by experience and imagination. We select words for their resonance and impact, arranging them with purposeful line breaks to craft rhythm and tone—creating a literal and lyrical entanglement as a ‘found poem.
The Murmuring Moon reminds us that nature’s beauty is in both stillness and in motion. In a season of endings, this moon offers a message of togetherness. As each bird responds to another, so can we respond to the living systems around us, moving gracefully in relation, rather than apart. May children’s ideas fly, merge, sweep, and swoop in wonder, curiosity and fascination.
Murmuring Moon
When the year exhales its final breath
and frost paints the mornings silver,
the Cold Moon lifts herself above the horizon
— pale, patient, and watchful.
Her light lies across the land
like a thin veil of calm.
Fields are stilled,
rivers slow their murmur,
and the hedgerows sleep.
Yet above this hush, the sky is alive.
At dusk, a low whisper gathers.
First a handful of wings,
then hundreds, then thousands —
starlings, stitching the twilight together with motion.
They rise and twist, pulse and fold,
a living tide that bends and blooms in perfect unison.
Their flight is a story written on air,
fleeting as breath and yet eternal in its rhythm.
Because even in the coldest season, life dances.
There is warmth in togetherness,
motion in stillness,
and meaning in pattern.
The Murmuring Moon celebrates not the solitude of winter,
but the choreography of connection.
Each bird,
guided by its nearest neighbours,
becomes part of something larger
— a murmuring whole,
as fluid as wind and as mysterious as instinct.
Beneath this moon, we are reminded:
community is not a concept, but a movement.
Photo © Sharon Witt
Activities – Let’s celebrate starlings
Starlings are known for their intelligence, mimicry, social coordination and the beauty of their murmurations. Children are skilled at nuanced and sensitive listening to their multi-species surroundings (Merewether, 2019). The following suggestions are activities that cultivate openness in moments of wintery encounter, and nurture learners’ ability to respond. In a lively world, where human and more-than-human are entangled, attentive relations with the world matter.
Pause, linger and dwell. Attune and attend with all your senses:
At dusk, watch starlings gather — clouds of feathers that shift like smoke.
Listen to the soft rush of wings, the single voice made from a thousand hearts.
Feel the air change as the sun slips and the full moon ascends.
Each murmuration is a dialogue — between light and dark, between chill and life, between the individual and the many.
Wonder at the theatre of the skies. Who is coming and going? Watch a murmuration and note its shapes. What can you see in the patterns? Imagine – what do they remind you of — waves, ink, breath?
Hold a safety mirror in your hands, with the mirror facing skywards. Watch from a different perspective, follow movement, embody shifting patterns.
The word murmuration describes how starlings flock and move in their thousands. Play with words to evoke this phenomenon, or invent your own for this swooping aerial dance!
A soft, rolling, wave-like sound — a literal murmur of wings and calls.
A fluid, cloudlike motion — appearing to ripple and hum through the sky.
The visual motion of their coordinated flight.
A swirling, shifting mass of birds which moves in pulses of expansion and diminution.
A dancing cloud of density one minute, diffuseness the next.
Kennings are a form of old Norse Poetry. They are two-word phrases used in place of a one-word noun. Write kennings on a black starling shaped card silhouette for a stunning display.
Starlings as – ‘sky-fillers’, ‘speckled swoopers’, ‘chattering dancers’…
Murmurations as a – ‘shape-shifting spectacle’, ‘dance of iridescence’…
Capture moments of flight before shapes dissolve. Chart change and variation. Fill skies with bird dialogue. Imagine possibilities.
Follow birds in informal sky maps, noticing choreographies in the air.
Track and plot feeding and roost sites in your locality, including direction, frequency, concentration, habitats, timings.
Map the soundtrack of the sky. Who do we share our spaces with? How can we respond to the sounds we hear?
Learn how starlings communicate in motion. How does a flock decide to turn? What are the advantages of this behaviour? Which other birds move as a flock? Where might you see this behaviour in your locality?
Create bird puppets / shapes bird profiles on sticks
Move in procession – connect to place
Move in harmony and connectedness, with individual expression and collective purpose.
Who needs a voice in your environment? How might you amplify wild voices?
- Robins, blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows, pigeons and other birds stay active and visit gardens and parks.
- Owls hoot in winter as part of their mating rituals.
- Foxes yip or bark, especially on still nights.
- Deer shelter in woodland.
- Squirrels and other small mammals rustle under leaves or snow as they dig up hidden food stores.
The winter months are an excellent time to practise tracking by looking for footprints in mud or snow.
Join the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch RSPB – 23rd to 25th January 2026. Sit back, relax and watch your garden / school birds for an hour.
Evergreen trees (pines, spruces) whisper when the wind passes through their needles.
Dry grasses and seed stalks rustle in the wind or under the weight of frost.
Frozen reeds along ponds sometimes creak or tap as ice expands and contracts.
Wind creeps through bare branches, across snowdrifts, or through cracks in old houses.
Water in streams gurgles softly, and sometimes you can hear faint ‘popping’ as ice shifts.
Heavy snow muffles sound.
Resources: Picture Books
- The Shortest Day, (2020) Susan Cooper and Illustrator Carson Ellis
- The Starling, Neil Davis (2025)
- We are Starlings, Robert Furrow and Donna Jo Napoli, (2023) Random House, USA
- How Starling Got His Speckles, Keely Patrick and Antonio Boffa, (2024) Barefoot Books
- The Starling’s Song, Octavie Wolters, (2023) Pushkin Children’s Books
References
Merewether, J. (2019) New materialisms and children’s outdoor environments: murmurative diffractions, Children’s Geographies, 17:1, 105-117 DOI:10.1080/14733285.2018.1471449
Dr Helen Clarke and Dr Sharon Witt are independent researchers and consultants who focus on place attention and responsiveness, relational material encounters with landscapes, and explore ideas to connect children to environments.