A dramatic aerial display in which thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of starlings fly together in a tightly coordinated, constantly shifting cloud-like formation, most often observed at dusk before the flock settles to roost. Each bird responds only to the movements of its nearest several neighbors, and this simple, localized rule, repeated across the whole flock, produces the fluid, wave-like patterns that make a murmuration appear to move as a single organism.
Facts
PeriodicityOccurs in mid-winter in the UK, with flocks gathering just before sundown, and in spring in southwestern Denmark. 1 ScaleFlocks in southwestern Jutland, Denmark can exceed a million birds in spring, while UK winter murmurations typically involve five to fifty thousand birds. 1 Identification
Distinguishing AppearanceThe flock forms a tight, sphere-like formation that frequently expands, contracts and changes shape, creating complex silhouetted shapes against the sky known in Denmark as sort sol, or black sun. 1 Connections
Associated With
Murmuration is understood primarily as an anti-predator defense: starlings flock into large, rapidly shifting formations chiefly in response to attacks by aerial predators such as the peregrine falcon.
Sources
1. Common Starling (Wikipedia)
WikipediaBehaviour and ecology section, sentence on UK winter roosting flocks
Flocks of anything from five to fifty thousand common starlings form in areas of the UK just before sundown during mid-winter.
Behaviour and ecology section, sentence on Danish spring flocks
Flocks of more than a million common starlings may be observed just before sunset in spring in southwestern Jutland, Denmark
Behaviour and ecology section, sentence on murmuration shape and sort sol
Their swarm behaviour creates complex shapes silhouetted against the sky, a phenomenon known locally as sort sol ("black sun").
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