Movement in the Sky
May 4, 2015 10:09 AM   Subscribe

An amazing murmuration of starlings to make your Monday more enjoyable. [slyt | previously 1,2]
posted by quin (31 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
*Pachebel's Cannon in D warning*
posted by Kabanos at 10:28 AM on May 4, 2015 [7 favorites]


Ooh, an interesting and beautiful video!

...let's set it to Pachelbel's Canon in D.
posted by Sternmeyer at 10:29 AM on May 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeaaaaah, these always fill me with a horrible, creeping dread and make me think of the book Prey.

On the other hand, can you train starlings? Will they shit on command? Because you could get a pretty amazing large-scale art piece going here.
posted by phunniemee at 10:34 AM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


I like this one better...
posted by cooker girl at 10:46 AM on May 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


...let's set it to Pachelbel's Canon in D.

A. amazing images.

B. I agree with the unimaginative music choice. It's not just a cliche; it's the wrong cliche. There's way too much ebb and flow, dipping and diving, this-ing and that-ing going on for Pachebel's tired old Canon. Give me Vivaldi at least.
posted by philip-random at 10:56 AM on May 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Quelea derail.
posted by clawsoon at 11:07 AM on May 4, 2015


Budgie Murmuration in technicolor. Choose your own soundtrack.

I could watch these all day.
posted by hotelechozulu at 11:41 AM on May 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Ravel's Bolero would have been a better unimaginative cliche music choice.

Although given phunniemee's reactione above, some Carmina Burana would do just as well.
posted by Kabanos at 11:43 AM on May 4, 2015


Breathtaking video, though (and shoutouts to anyone recently reading "City of Stairs"!).
posted by taz at 11:49 AM on May 4, 2015


On the other hand, can you train starlings? Will they shit on command? Because you could get a pretty amazing large-scale art piece going here.
I'm gonna hazard a wild guess that you've never smelled mass quantities of starling shit.
posted by romakimmy at 12:31 PM on May 4, 2015


So hard to impress you guys.

I hadn't heard Canon in D in a long time. I thought the whole thing was lovely.
posted by Thistledown at 12:48 PM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Why the hell would y'all want ANY music on a video of BIRDS that has BIRDS TWEETING in the background?
posted by feral_goldfish at 1:45 PM on May 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


There is a mute button!

Scale-free correlations in starling flocks. The answer is of course we have no idea what is going on here with the material science. This maybe is in Rupert Sheldrake land.
posted by bukvich at 2:05 PM on May 4, 2015


This is an epic video I shot of starlings in Eastbourne in 2005 that has, thanks largely to my pairing it with a melancholic Leslie Feist/Broken Social Scene track since used in a number of teen weepies, racked up a lot of views. It starts out fuzzy (wish I'd set the Sony V3's focus manually to infinity) but kicks off c. 2 mins in when a whole lot more birds show up.
posted by Flashman at 2:08 PM on May 4, 2015


I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that in the United States, starlings are an invasive species.

Some chump released every bird mentioned by shakespeare into the skies in the US, and starlings turned into an infestation that materially and negatively affect the cost of food. They are the reason you no longer hear bluebirds in your skies.

Marvel all you like, but mourn the local birds they pushed out. These vicious little monsters are in all the top 100 lists for invasive species.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:25 PM on May 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


I refrained from mentioning the invasive species thing, because I was already crapping on the music. But yeah, I have no love for European starlings in North America.
posted by Kabanos at 2:45 PM on May 4, 2015


I always find it interesting how a flock of birds or school of fishes decides to turn right or left in unison. I sometimes suspect that something is happening at the quantum level. The traditional view has been that quantum effects are not noticeable beyond the atomic level. Current research indicates that this is not true.

Several months ago there was an article in Discover magazine, if I remember right, that gave examples of quantum effects occurring in biological systems. One example showed that the hydrogen atom linking the two strands in the DNA molecule existed in a state of super-position and when the hydrogen atom picked a side, it determined which genes got switched on. The other example given was how, in photosynthesis, the electrons followed every possible path through the mitochondria before choosing the shortest route. Many, many years ago I read an article speculating that brains operated at a quantum level. It had something to do with carbon nano-tubules.

Caveat: I am no expert and may have expressed these matters somewhat clumsily, but I think I gave the jist of what I am driving at.
posted by rankfreudlite at 2:59 PM on May 4, 2015


I put out a feeder of suet once. Just once. Within two hours a 'mumuration' of starlings came and ate and shit it all out all over a second story window where the feeder was. It was February so I had to look at that shit until spring when it was warm enough I could clean the window.
posted by srboisvert at 3:24 PM on May 4, 2015


It's quite a leap from a half-remembered Discover magazine article about a possible effect of quantum phenomena in molecular biology, to "suspecting" that there are quantum effects behind the coordinated movements of birds.

Seriously, "quantum" is not the way to describe anything that we find mysterious - that's new age quantum crystal territory, not scientific thinking. In any case, people have been modeling the behavior of flocking birds for ages, and if you're interested in it you might want to check it out.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:27 PM on May 4, 2015 [4 favorites]


"Quantum" Carbon Nano-tubules (sic) in brains? SO WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS


Caveat: I am no expert and may have expressed these matters somewhat clumsily, but I think I gave the jist of what I am driving at.



Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
posted by lalochezia at 4:50 PM on May 4, 2015


The seagull in the lower left at 0:36 is RUNNING FOR IT'S LIFE with a horde of zombie starlings behind it.
posted by dazed_one at 5:32 PM on May 4, 2015



Seriously, "quantum" is not the way to describe anything that we find mysterious - that's new age quantum crystal territory, not scientific thinking. In any case, people have been modeling the behavior of flocking birds for ages, and if you're interested in it you might want to check it out.

Good point. We should not cal the mysterious "quantum." We should only call the quantum "mysterious."

"In this chapter we shall tackle immediately the basic element of the mysterious
behavior in its most strange form. We choose to examine a phenomenon which is
impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has
in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery.
We cannot make the mystery go away by "explaining" how it works. We will just
tell you how it works. In telling you how it works we will have told you about the
basic peculiarities of all quantum mechanics."
--Richard Feynman

If, in science, we say that nothing is mysterious, we should end all science, because we know it all. Science is about extending human knowledge. I suppose there are some people who, through mental laziness, pound their stake into a specific parcel of intellectual land and refuse to budge. This is because they are not interested in knowledge for its own sake, but in their own self-interest.

By the way, I was unable to understand what you meant by "new age quantum crystal territory" the concept seems rather undefined.

Looking at the larger picture, there seems to be two phenomena at play here: those who believe that we know everything, therefore nothing is possible, and those who believe that we don't know everything, therefor anything is possible.
posted by rankfreudlite at 6:56 PM on May 4, 2015


I saw this effect once. It was evening after a long work day and I was waiting for my bus to take me home. It was so amazing I let the bus go without me, knowing it was the only one and I'd have to walk miles home, probably after dark.

(someone rescued me part way home, though)
posted by ctmf at 7:06 PM on May 4, 2015


I agree with the unimaginative music choice. It's not just a cliche; it's the wrong cliche. There's way too much ebb and flow, dipping and diving, this-ing and that-ing going on for Pachebel's tired old Canon. Give me Vivaldi at least.

At least? At least? A video of this magnitude requires AT LEAST dub-step.
posted by rankfreudlite at 7:35 PM on May 4, 2015


I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that in the United States, starlings are an invasive species.

It's probably a lost cause at this point given how pervasive starlings are here, but I know quite a few bird lovers who keep an air rifle by the window just for shooting starlings.

The videos of big flocks are definitely visually interesting, but I can't see them without thinking of the impact those same birds have had in this continent.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:53 PM on May 4, 2015


It is the epitome of thick-headed thinking to dislike a species.
posted by rankfreudlite at 8:59 PM on May 4, 2015


It is the epitome of thick-headed thinking to dislike a species.

Species, nothing. I've got a problem with the entire damned clade. These are the fuckers that evolved from dinosaurs. Natural selection looked at this guy and was like ok, that's nice, but what if it could also fly. Nope. NOoooppe nope noepe nope. Nope. No thank you.
posted by phunniemee at 9:10 PM on May 4, 2015


It is the epitome of thick-headed thinking to dislike a species.

Species, nothing. I've got a problem with the entire damned clade. These are the fuckers that evolved from dinosaurs. Natural selection looked at this guy and was like ok, that's nice, but what if it could also fly. Nope. NOoooppe nope noepe nope. Nope. No thank you.

This reminds me of one of my many futile flights of paleontological fantasy. Regarding the set-up for the movie, the plot is thus:

The Dominican Republic, yada yada, amber, yada yada. The eggs produce a humanoid species. They take over the world.
posted by rankfreudlite at 10:08 PM on May 4, 2015


They are fascinating to watch, but they are an invasive species that the US Government specifically poisons by the millions, because if they didn't, the skies would darken with them.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 10:08 PM on May 4, 2015


What must've the flocks of passenger pigeons looked like? Were they like this? Are reports of them darkening the skies for days an exaggeration?
posted by firemouth at 7:43 AM on May 5, 2015


Scale-free correlations in starling flocks -- that's a fascinating and surprisingly approachable read, thanks.
posted by metaBugs at 10:31 AM on May 5, 2015


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