Watch “The “Art of Flying,” a Short Film Capturing the Wondrous Murmurations of the Common Starling

In the tra­di­tion of Andrew Sul­li­van’s Dish, we start the week–before it even gets a bit hectic–with a Men­tal Health break. Above, watch The Art of Fly­ing, Jan van Ijken’s short film that cap­tures the mys­te­ri­ous flights–or murmurations–of the Com­mon Star­ling. A blurb accom­pa­ny­ing the film adds a bit more con­text:

It is still unknown how the thou­sands of birds are able to fly in such dense swarms with­out col­lid­ing. Every night the star­lings gath­er at dusk to per­form their stun­ning air show. Because of the rel­a­tive­ly warm win­ter of 2014/2015, the star­lings stayed in the Nether­lands instead of migrat­ing south­wards. This gave film­mak­er Jan van IJken the oppor­tu­ni­ty to film one of the most spec­tac­u­lar and amaz­ing nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na on earth.

Also, over at janvanijken.com, you’ll find a longer sev­en-minute ver­sion of this film, fea­tur­ing “won­der­ful close-ups and a spec­tac­u­lar final scene.” The €2,99 fee for watch­ing that full-length film goes toward sup­port­ing van Ijken’s work as an inde­pen­dent film­mak­er.

Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Stun­ning, Chance Encounter With Nature

The Fal­con and the Mur­mu­ra­tion: Nature’s Aer­i­al Bat­tle Above Rome

A Bird Bal­let in South­ern France