Nature ... Murmuration ... Magnificent ...

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Every autumn thousands of starlings dance in the twilight. No one really knows why they do it. Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith, came across this spectacle by chance while canoeing on Lough Derg, the last of the three largest lakes on the River Shannon in Ireland. A living swirling cloud of starlings. The birds gather in magical shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winter’s bite. Murmurations are also seen in the UK including Gretna, Scotland and Brighton, England. Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. Even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ acrobatics, which rely on the tiny bird’s quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock.

Impenetrable as the flock’s movements might seem to the human eye, Daniel Butler writing in the Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4736472/The-mathematics-of-murmurating-starlings.html suggests the underlying maths is comparatively straightforward. "Each bird strives to fly as close to its neighbours as possible, instantly copying any changes in speed or direction. As a result, tiny deviations by one bird are magnified and distorted by those surrounding it, creating rippling, swirling patterns. In other words, this is a classic case of mathematical chaos (larger shapes composed of infinitely varied smaller patterns). Whatever the science, however, it is difficult for the observer to think of it as anything other than some vast living entity."

An A-Maz-Ing S-eye-T :)