I saw this one time in the late 60s. Was with my mom and brother. We watched it for nearly 15 minutes and it was just mesmerizing!
27 Comments on Murmuration of Starlings
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I’d pay the price of admission to see that in person!
Northern Lights for the colorblind.
Damn starlings eat more of my deer feed than any other animals.
And to think they were introduced to the US from Europe by some idiot who wanted every bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s works living in Central Park in NYC.A highly invasive species. Just sayin’
One of God’s more spectacular wonders!
Starling murmuration is so captivating and beautiful quite a number of people have tried to understand how it “works”. At the risk of detracting somewhat from the natural beauty, HERE is a jumping off point complete with a computer graphic simulation.
Was Clarice in there, murmuring?
My second favorite thing to do in a duck blind. Watch the Starlings.
Uncle Al, that was fascinating!
He mentioned something I was thinking; how the movement of the birds remind me of a school of fish.
@ joe6pak THURSDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2025, 17:01 AT 5:01 PM
I’ve seen that dance so frequently I don’t get too excited about it. They were over the school across the street a couple months ago.
@Uncle_AL – Thank you very much for linking to that site. I almost immediately fell into accepting the homework assignment, but I snapped out of it fairly quickly! Lucky class to get such an interesting assignment.
During the lockdown, my SIL was helping a local wildlife rehabber. The state of CA came in and told the rehabber to euthanize all the animals she had and close her doors.
There was a young female starling on site. The rehabber gave the bird, immediately christened Omelette, to my SIL.
Did you know that starlings mimic sounds? Well I didn’t. One time while watching my niece, I heard Omelette talking like my SIL.
I think it is a fun activity for birds and fish, but it is also an important survival tactic for them too, when one gets spooked they all react. It is called synchronized flying, but it is probably more accurate to call it community flying as they are part of a group (community)
The Chinese (and and a few others) have mastered the “schooling algorithm.” Yeah. it’s actually a weapon. One cargo ship could unleash 40,000 schooling attack drones on a U.S. port.
Meh
Counting Crows “Murder of one cones to mind”.
Midges along the shoreline of Lake Erie perform the exact same dance. Being smaller than starlings, their dance looks like an ever changing cloud of smoke. An intense buzzing noise (wings) is included at no charge.
A “murder” of crows is similar, but not as graceful. It is a daily miniature “migration” to and from their nightly sleeping area.
The Mr and I saw that once in Vancouver. Then they all landed on the power lines and just sat there. It was kind of spooky. I can’t even watch Alf’s movie.
Mrs radiomattm, Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren weren’t hanging out at the local diner were they?
Bad_Brad:
LOL no! But the Mr. once took me to the schoolhouse in Bodega and we also went by the cafe in Bodega Bay. Gave me the creeps even then.
Now, watch chimney swifts.
Birds and insects (most, or a lot of them) ability to fly could only come from an unimaginable super intelligence. IMO, no way it was the result of evolution.
Tim – You’re thinking of the ones we can’t see flying around.
They’ve developed Stealth Technology.
We only have ones and twos of starlings around our house, but once in a very great while a lot of them show up and what a racket they make! I don’t enjoy their inharmonious calls, but it’s a lot of fun to clap my hands loudly and watch them burst forth from the trees. We don’t get the kinds of murmurations shown in the video. That is quite something!
We experienced a robin migration a few years ago! I didn’t even know that robins migrate. And what a surprise it was! Hundreds and hundreds of robins ALL OVER THE PLACE. They were foraging through all the shrubbery and trees, making them seem alive with their activity.
Abigail, they do migrate.
Growing up it was always a big deal to see the first Robin’s here in Michigan as it meant spring was just around the corner.
Then we usually got a snowstorm.
@AbigailAdams & @Different Tim
I live in southern California and had never seen a robin in my yard. A couple of years ago, after a very wet winter, we started getting large flocks of robins in our yard.
The most startling part of this was the massive about of robin poop everywhere. We started calling them the “poopie birds”.
Imagine my surprise when I learned the scientific name for the American robin is “Turdus migratorius”!