Amazing moment starlings scared off predator by pretending to be an even bigger bird
This is the amazing moment a flock of starlings – murmuration, if you will – took on the shape of a giant bird to ward off a predator.
Anything the bird of prey could do, they could do better.
Perfectly timed photo captures the moment a flock of starlings took the shape of a giant bird.
Photo by Daniel Bieber. pic.twitter.com/UWfbM1NDlK
— Greg Hogben (@MyDaughtersArmy) January 2, 2018
People think it’s just too good to be true but it’s the real deal.
Holy shit. I really want to believe that’s real so I’m going to do so! And damn the internet, and the cynicism it has induced in me, to hell.
— Ben Stewart-Koster (@BStewartKoster) January 2, 2018
The inter-starling communication is amazing in order to coordinate and create the murmuration in the shape of a predator, to the starling predator probably in the area.
It is great that we don’t know exactly how they do this, defying human noseyness.— Iain Mackenzie (@iain_00) January 2, 2018
Murmuration. What a joyful word!
— Sandy H (@SandyH1123) January 3, 2018
Stunning I read that they believed a predator bird was in the area and quickly made them selves look bigger.
— Gordon Hughes (@gordon_hughes2) January 2, 2018
Parents of children of a certain age will know exactly the same thing happened in ‘The Shark in the Dark’, except with fish who scared off a shark by pretending to be a giant whale.
Are we over-thinking this?
Back in the real world, the photo was taken in the Costa Brava in north-east Spain. Here’s what the photographer Daniel Biber said, reported in the Independent.
“I was taking pictures of the murmurations over several days. Only when I checked the pictures on the computer later, I realised what formation the starlings had created.
“I was so concentrated on taking pictures at the time that I hadn’t realised that the starlings had created a giant bird in the sky.
“It took less than 10 seconds for the birds to create that formation. I realised that I had captured a unique snapshot, technically, sharp and in high quality.”
