This hypnotic swirling mass of flowing curves is a flock of birds. What an incredible aerial ballet.
I bet seeing this in person would give you chills. Heck, it gives me chills just watching this bad quality video with a bad sound track 🙂
And of course I couldn’t stop myself from looking at more of these kinds of videos and below is another one that gives some details on the phenomenon.
Apparently the birds are starlings and this behavior is not uncommon. They use it to check for predators and warm their bodies before roosting for the night.
Might not be uncommon but it certainly IS incredibly beautiful. It literally brings tears to my eyes. Yeah…I’m a softy when it comes to the amazing wonders of this little ridiculously rare and improbable planet we live on.
Are these just starlings? I know sandpipers do this too. I love these videos, and I love the behavior. Since it usually happens at dusk I thought they were eating bugs! But apparently that’s not so.
But Alice you never saw this before? I used to just sit and watch and watch. Maybe it’s a function of the species near you.
Thank you for posting this! Beautiful stuff.
Not sure…they may be sandpipers also.
And nope…sadly…this city girl has never witnessed this awesomeness live. Not sure if this kind of thing goes on in the wilds of Maryland or not. But apparently Baltimore birds will have none of it.
But have YOU been witness to rat confabs or pigeon powwows? There ARE some things us east coast city folks get to see also 🙂