In the colder months, starlings mass over the flat pastoral landscape in Ngambri/New South Wales, Australia. On the highway, overcast, past Lake George and nearing Goulburn, a dark murmuration dipped close to the perimeter of a field.
In flight, these passerine birds, from the family Sturnidae, behave in such spectacular and sophisticated cohesion that layman and scientists alike have speculated on their collective airborne affinities. In one recent study based on a computer model called StarDisplay, scientists tested three rules in unison - separation, attraction, and alignment. These rules established aerodynamic behaviour, movement above a sleeping site and the low fixed number of interaction neighbours. Results from StarDisplay saw patterns emerge that resembled high-speed video recordings of murmurations taken in Rome, suggesting that these birds likley coordinate based on a set of rules rather than taking direction from a singular leading figure[1].
Photographing from the passenger side window, for a moment the murmuration kept pace with the car, allowing for several shots. My camera, set to compensate for low light, pathed both the motion of the birds as well as my own transit past.
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Hildenbrandt, H., C. Carere, and C.K. Hemelrijk. 2010. ‘Self-Organized Aerial Displays of Thousands of Starlings: A Model’. Behavioral Ecology 21 (6): 1349–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arq149.
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