Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith were canoeing somewhere in Ireland when they had a chance encounter with one of nature’s greatest and most fleeting phenomena — a murmuration of starlings. The spectacle is a magical case of mathematical chaos in action. And, it’s all driven by the quest for survival. The Telegraph has more….
via Dot Earth
I saw this phenomenon in rural Butte County, California, once in about 1980.
Are starlings the only species to engage in this behavior? Googling the question produces no answer.
See the excellent article about this behavior in Audubon magazine: http://archive.audubonmagazine.org/features0903/truenature.html
Wow
Came over from Somon Mayo’s tweet.
That is one fabulous video.
Something tells me that you are going to get a lot of visitors.
Every fall in Traverse City, Mi the starlings gather on telephone wires all day and in the evening they fly off in sky darkening groups that twist and billow like smoke.
So f****** incredible. So beautiful. Thank you so much for posting.