A large flock of starlings over fields near Gretna, LouisianaWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, WALTER BAXTER
When two young girls set out for a canoe ride on the River Shannon in Ireland in late October, they couldn’t have imagined what they would see—and catch on camera: thousands of starlings swooping and turning over the water, akin to a massive ball of bait fish being chased by a hungry seal. The group, known as a murmuration, demonstrates impeccable coordination, as it must to avoid the bumping and crashing of the individual birds.
In 2008, researchers took a closer look at starling murmurations in an attempt to determine exactly how they harmonize their movements. Measuring the positions of individuals in flocks of up to 2,700 birds, the researchers found that the birds kept their distance from each other—a minimum distance of approximately their ...
