Stunning photos capture the incredible moment when a flock of starlings formed the silhouette of a giant bird over a lake in Ireland. Photographer James Crombie captured birds over Loch Annell in County Westmeath.
Breathtaking footage shows how starlings dive and dive in unison, forming the outlines of a bird above the water. The photographer made about 50 trips to the lake before he managed to capture this amazing moment.
In the world of birds, there is an amazing phenomenon – the “dance of starlings”, or murmuration (from Lat. murmuratio – “murmur”). Gathering in huge flocks, starlings create contracting and decompressing clouds moving in an unpredictable way. These clouds can split into parts and connect. Some clouds of birds fly through others at speeds up to 40 km/h. Incredibly, the starlings do not collide at the same time.
If you carefully observe the aerial dance of the starlings, you will notice that all their movements are strictly coordinated. In this respect, they can be compared to a synchronized swimming team. Each individual bird sets the flight path of seven of its closest neighbors. As a result, there is a kind of chain reaction in which the whole flock participates. The configuration of the flock is constantly changing, resulting in completely unique drawings.