This is how 40,000 starlings get to bed in less than a minute.

[MelissaB]

Link to tweet

This is how 40,000 starlings get to bed in less than a minute.

[pbmus]

1. Thanks for sharing...

[chia]

40. So beautiful...

[Snotcicles]

2. Looks more like 41,000 to me. nt

[MelissaB]

4. The camera guy must have miscounted.

[airplaneman]

9. No No No 39,500 n/t.

[SCantiGOP]

21. Is that you, Rain Man?

(See Dustin Hoffman in the movie if you don’t get the reference.)

[JHB]

29. Rain man would say it's about 100 starlings.

[SCantiGOP]

32. He would know the exact number

Scene in the movie was a guy dropping a box of toothpicks he had just opened. Rain Man stared at it for about 30 seconds and then started saying “197,197,197.”
The guy looked at the box, which said it contained 200, and then looked inside to see that 3 were still there.

[Takket]

23. That is the largest group of starlings to go to sleep at one time EVER. PERIOD!

[rpannier]

26. More Starlings in that flock

than the number of people at il douche's inauguration

[Takket]

28. much larger cumulative IQ too lol

[FSogol]

33. No, it's 40k. I counted the legs and divided by 2.

[Phoenix61]

3. Amazing! nt

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. It is PHENOMENAL! And beautiful. n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. Breathtaking

[Skittles]

7. how do they not run into each other!

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Swarming behavior can be accounted for by fairly simple rules.

Early studies of swarm behaviour employed mathematical models to simulate and understand the behaviour. The simplest mathematical models of animal swarms generally represent individual animals as following three rules:

Move in the same direction as your neighbours
Remain close to your neighbours
Avoid collisions with your neighbours

However recent studies of starling flocks have shown that each bird modifies its position, relative to the six or seven animals directly surrounding it, no matter how close or how far away those animals are.[4] Interactions between flocking starlings are thus based on a topological rule rather than a metric rule. It remains to be seen whether this applies to other animals. Another recent study, based on an analysis of high speed camera footage of flocks above Rome and assuming minimal behavioural rules, has convincingly simulated a number of aspects of flock behaviour.[5][6][7][8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour#Mathematical_models

Lots of other interesting examples of swarming at the Wiki page.

(The second and third rules above suggest there is an optimum distance range -- too close is repulsive, too far away attractive. Interestingly, kind of like van der Waals interactions between molecules.)

[OhNo-Really]

19. United They Fly

Maybe it is the poet in me. I've always wondered if they are messeging us but we don't understand Swarm-speak.

[forgotmylogin]

38. I would assume the same way humans can walk in a crowd...

Only the birds are doing it in three dimensions instead of two.

I've heard they do "collide" occasionally, but it's just jostling in mid-air, same as people might brush past on a crowded sidewalk.

[Ms. Toad]

8. i love murmurations - the one thing I miss about my current job.

In the S[ring and fall I used to drive under one of those bird clouds about every other day. They don't cross my new path.

[democratisphere]

10. Beautiful birds! Kinetic art!

Thanks for this MelissaB!

[Scurrilous]

11. K&R

[Tree-Hugger]

12. Damn

Nature is so fucking amazing. Thank you for sharing.

[blueinredohio]

13. That was fascinating and beautiful. Thanks

[OKNancy]

15. Just as long as they don't land in my trees

They are nasty noisy things. I usually bang lids to get them to leave.

[Dave Starsky]

35. They are notorious for dive-bombing, too.

I can't fucking stand starlings. They are the avian version of wasps. Their sole purpose in this world is to go around multiplying like crazy and fucking shit up. Like humans, too, I guess.

Interestingly, there didn't use to be ANY starlings in North America until 1890, when some idiot imported a cage full of them from England and released them in Central Park as a tribute to William Shakespeare.

[hunter]

45. I used to dislike starlings as an invasive species.

But when they showed up here in California they sure knocked down the garden snail population.

Garden snails are another invasive species. Snails used to be by far the worst pest in our organic garden. A foggy morning would bring out hundreds of them. Since the starlings arrived I rarely see any.

[SergeStorms]

43. They're horrible birds.

They kill other birds for no other reason that to kill them. I found two Downy Woodpeckers dead in my yard last Spring. Their eyes had been poked out. That's how you know it was another bird, and You know it was a Starling because they're the only bird that will do that for no reason. I've seen them attack other birds as well. They're not welcome at my feeders, and the other birds will come right in after I chase them away, even with me standing right there. They hate the Starlings too, and they know I'm only chasing those ugly, vicious birds away and not aiming my aggression at them.

Needless to say I curse the people who brought them here from England years ago.

[magicarpet]

16. Bird poop on the windshield....

.... big time.

[Codeine]

17. The downtown area of my city

used to have a clump of trees that - for whatever reason - attracted an enormous flock of starlings. They would swoop around like that, like an aerial ballet, over one of our main streets and were fascinating enough people would have accidents because they’d get so caught up watching them.

Eventually the city put fine netting around the trees and just like that the starlings were gone. I suppose it’s safer, but it was a lot of fun to see them each evening.

[tavernier]

18. Not a bit surprised.

I’ve encountered thousands of ppl in my grocery store on Friday evening right after work ends, buying beer and wine, and we weave our carts beautifully around each other without a knick or scratch.

[Sophia4]

20. Amazing! Beautiful!

[CTyankee]

22. I saw this in Italy (Florence) and was amazed. They are attracted to a particular piazza because it

is the warmest place in the city. I saw them swarm and the land in the piazza and them take off and leave. It was incredible. I had no idea this happened. Wonderful moment in my trip to Italy.

[Silver1]

24. Thank you!

That was amazing. I've looked at a lot of starling videos and can't get enough. Trying to figure out how to paint them and I'm not sure it's possible.

[Buns_of_Fire]

46. I think they move WAY too fast for an adequate paint job.

And welcome, by the way.

[Silver1]

47. Thank you.

I've been reading DU for a few years now. Thought it was time to join.

The starlings ... I think painting them would be about painting that blur! But how?

[Red Mountain]

25. They sleep on the ground?

[Chipper Chat]

41. no. in trees.

In college one day at 5pm when thousands of them were roosting I took a pair of concert cymbals from the band room and made a huge crash. They flew but I was covered with starling droppings and it took an hour to clean and polish the cymbals.

[Guilded Lilly]

27. Just WOW.

[thbobby]

30. Emergence is a sight to behold

Doesn't look like it could be real, but I am sure it is. Amazing!

[dhol82]

31. Murmeration

Such a lovely word.

[Rhiannon12866]

34. Wow! That was absolutely amazing!

Thanks so much for posting!

[Heartstrings]

36. Very cool!

Thanks for sharing!

[Honeycombe8]

37. Awwwww. Night Night! Nature is awesome.

[a kennedy]

39. the flying patterns are memorizing, so beautiful.......

Thanks for sharing.

[DoctorJoJo]

42. Got To Wonder ...

... how they choose a leader, and how that leader commands those gyrations.

[GulfCoast66]

44. Flicks of birds are amizing. But starlings are an imported noxious species

Importing the to the US over a hundred years ago negatively affected the environment in ways we will never know.

If we could eradicate them here it would help out native species immensely.

I know, I can be a Debbie downer but I can’t shake the scientist in me.