Birds!
And now for something completely apolitical. This is a flock of 300,000 starlings in Denmark. No, I did not count them, but I’m going to rely on the estimate provided and assume that they have some kind of bird counting technology of which I am unaware. I’ll just stick with a “LOT.”
According to ornithologists, these feathered friends really do prefer to roost together, and the massive formations are a sort of pre-roost ritual that take on these odd shapes.
I don’t understand Danish so I don’t know what they’re saying in the background, but it’s probably something like, “Wow, that’s a lot of birds!”
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in the middle of that, but I sat here drinking my coffee and thought I would share.
Naw, AKM. Here is the translation from Dutch:
This just in from Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck at FauxNews: there were 150,000,000 birds in that flock! This number was arrived at by a crack research team at “The University of I Don’t Remember.” The attempt to say that there were only 300,000 is obviously a liberal plot on the part of the Obama administration to stifle the free speech rights of these fine, conservative, patriotic birds. Those liberals won’t be able to get away with this! Wait until all those attending this flock start tweeting about it!
I can’t imagine being UNDERNEATH that!
Interesting video of cooperative birds.
Looks like a bunny.
I am sad to say that starlings, though their flight patterns are fascinating, are my most disliked birds. In the lower 48 they have essentially invaded and crowded out lots of native species. They are also not cute – and have a nasty call. If pigeons are the rats of the sky – and they are at least pretty to look at – starlings are the cockroaches.
Just as you would look at puffy cloud formations… I noticed they formed a few different pictures or objects. One… I won’t mention. But… at the 36 second mark at the top of the cloud you could see the head of a bird formed.It even had the eye and a beak and sort of looked like a vulture or turkey neck.
Would this be called ‘ performance art?
And I couldn’t tell which one was of them the Leader… telling them which way to fly. You should have gotten out that red pencil thingy you use and drawn a circle around him.
Why would starlings make a ph allic symbol in the sky?
I did some part time work a few years back for my sister in Calabasas CA and got to watch these birds and their nesting habits. They were in the process of building little nests all over the atrium of the building. We even could peek inside some nests built in the cornice of windows. The starlings were fun to watch.. but dangerous to be under! Each year, after the nesting birds leave the building owners have to sandblast and repaint. Messy birds!
Count moi in the group..interesting to watch the video..but..my inner human..is just jones’n..to ‘reduce their numbers..in about any way I can. Hate them..with a passion!!!!!!!
way cool!
I have seen other little birds, finches, I think, in flocks of 60 or 70, move as one
organism, in and out of my neighbor’s pine tree, and at an evergreen near a big
hospital center. They just all up and go at once, no body bumping into any one else.
I’ve seen large masses of mosquitos do similar things in Norway. Too bad the starlings seem disinterested in developing a taste for them millions of skeeters.
And to bad neither “flock” has no interest in flying over Palin’s house. Would be a pretty repainted shade of purple if the starlings went over.
The computer modelers are on the case; article here.
When I moved from NYC to “the country” about 25 years ago, I was scared to death one Spring day when hundreds of the little black birds were flying in and out of the two big maple trees out back. Visions of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”
kept swirling around in my head. I had no idea what they were or that they would soon leave. They were so noisy and I was so spooked out until I called my brother-in-law a real birder and learned that all would be OK soon.
“I see a bunny, and a puppy and a camel…”
Unfortunately, starlings will wait until others build nests and then take over. Had a pair of red bellied woodpeckers diligently carving out a nest. Next thing I knew, the starlings were in it. They do fly in interesting formations, almost a ballet, but what a mess where they roost.
Makes one think of the many species of birds extinct now from this continent. Look up the old descriptions of passenger pigeons, it’s enough to break your heart….
1 Gasman Says: November 14th, 2009 at 9:33 AM
Naw, AKM. Here is the translation from Dutch:
This just in from Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck at FauxNews: there were 150,000,000 birds in that flock! This number was arrived at by a crack research team at “The University of I Don’t Remember.”
I thought that it was the Iduntno University staff…
@Catherine That was my first thought. Flocks of passenger pigeons were reported to blacken the sky like storm clouds bringing torrential rain. Must have been a breath-taking sight. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to stand beneath them.
Migrating birds have always been a fascinating watch….
AND have you all seen Newsweek’s “Running Rouge” issue?
If not, it’s some good medicine as seen on Bree Palin….
There’s a town in western NY just southwest of Syracuse called Auburn. They have a similar problem every winter with crows and it’s been going on for more then 100 years. They’ve brought in all sorts of wildlife specialists and no one can figure out why the invasion happens. A few years ago, biologists counted 63,000 of them. There are only a little less than 30,000 people in the town so the birds outnumber them more than 2 to 1!
It’s been terrible for local businesses because everyone avoids the town while the birds are there, which is a good part of the year. I’ve driven through there during ‘crow season’ and the noise is almost as bad as the mess they leave behind. Wildlife people have tried all sorts of things to scare them away but crows are very smart and figure out pretty quickly what’s going on. It seems like the most effective deterrent (other than shooting them) has been playing tapes of crow distress calls.
All those crows sitting in the leafless trees ‘talking’ to each other is pretty creepy to see!
Starlings—Most beautiful in flight. They depart their roosts, usually in orchards, at sunrise, retuning at sunset. Almost always flock in mass.
Unfortunately, they are the scourge of aviation. Absolute killers for the turbojet engine. Fortunately though, airports can control them. These birds don’t flock at altitude but low level. All an airport need do is not provide a desirable habitat anywhere close to the airport. Managers and local politicians get into trouble when they try and pretty up their airports with groves of nice trees, etc.
Any doubt? “ October 4, 1960. Boston, Runway 05, 5:40 P.M. Eastern Airlines Lockheed Electra, seconds after liftoff ingested a large number of starlings, four engine turboprop aircraft, lost three engines #1, #2 and #3. Killed 62 out of 72 on board.”
Sorry to be a kill joy, but we should not forget this stuff. Remember Elmendorf, Sept. 22, 1995, AWACS, Boeing 707 derivative, E-3, geese, lost all four engines on departure, 24 killed, no survivors?
HudsonElizabeth same thing happened to me years ago. .I don’t know what kind of birds they were but they were every where,any window you looked out there they were I was really spooked because of the movie the Birds also.They stayed most of the day and I wouldn’t let the kids go out There were thousands,in the trees on the electric wires on the ground,was really really spooky.They finially left in the evening ,thank God.
If they had color, they’d look like Northern Lights.
That’s how spooky the aurora is, like living intelligence.
Starlings are definitely the enemy of anything else that flies. Thery were a huge problem at Ft. Campbell KY in the 1970s, continually colliding with helicoptors, nesting in the engine cavities and rotors. A major project was undertaken to exterminate them (with plenty of complaints from some groups), but on an exceptionally cold night, the ‘copters went over the areas spraying an oil solution into the areas where they roosted, and they froze to death. Although families living on post were notified of what to expect, it was still a bit of a shock to wake up the next morning and see dead birds all over the playground behind our housing, and explain the whys of it to children. It was a major clean-up task for weeks.
Although some of the more major areas where they roosted have been cut down, there are still many more not. Traveling that section of the county morning and night, one can see the masses going out for their daily hunt, and going home to roost. Beauty in one respect, but along with their being such a danger to our military flightcrews, they’ve caused a lot of illness in humans.
Just north of Ft. Campbell is the Gander Memorial, in honor of the 248 members of the 502nd Infantry Brigade who died in a crash in 1985, returning from deployment to the Sinai. Newfoundland government and people had provided a tree to represent each loss of life. For years, the trees grew and thrived and were so stately and such a monument to our soldiers! Then the starlings struck – disease became rampant and the entire park was leveled and many feet of soil had to be removed. The project took several years with the entire area off limits because of the Histoplasmosis. Boxwoods have now been replanted and people are once again enjoying the park and being able to honor our soldiers.
I saw that earlier in the week. Does help you understand how people could come to believe in ghost and other supernatural oddities.
What would any of us think if we hadn’t been told before hand that it was a flock of birds.
There was an (AP?) article on starlings a few weeks ago. It gave the short history of some misanthrope that over-glamorized them after reading Shakespeare and thought it would be a good idea to bring them to the US.
Whoever referred to them as “cockroaches of the sky” nailed it.
Now if only humans in their cars were so skillful…
They are an introduced species, and have disrupted many native ecosystems here. I would imagine they have a more sustainable “niche” in Europe? To tell you the truth, this brief film reminded me a lot of the days many years ago I would injest certain chemical substances in search of mind-expansion!
From all the comments, they sound like a real pest species, but it still amazes me that hundreds of thousands of birds can fly around like that and not fly into each other. How do they do that?!
My feeling about the ‘how’..for them..and other birds in formations..it must create a ‘feel’..and a ‘thrumming’ vibration..so that the receptors within..each bird..just automatically..engage at a certain distance..and..awayyy they go…each cocooned..so to speak..by ‘informative vibration’ so that there is not a need to ‘think’..it just..adjusts..perhpas a certain airflow is created..which also..compartmentalises them..within the energy field they create.
We get the same thing here in Kansas. I never get tired of watching the flocks sometimes blocking out the sun. The first time my mother saw them, she thought it was a tornado. Just an awe inspiring site.
Marnie, you are right, I would have been totally freaked out to see that!
Wow! It’s like watching a dynamic Rohrsach. Wait! I see something holy in there! Why it’s Sarah!
Adding on to GreatGranny2C’s recollection of the starling eradication program at Fort Campbell, KY: I was in the Preventive Medicine unit at Fort Knox at the time. We had a similar problem with starlings but thankfully, I opted not to attempt controlling them. In that part of the country, starlings roost communally in the winter, usually in hemlock thickets. Each morning they head out to forage in corn fields over a wide range. They head out (and return) together in an aerial column hundreds of yards wide and stretching from horizon to horizon, taking as much as 15 minutes to pass by. Eight or ten million birds to a roost was a common estimate.
Besides the danger to aviation, starlings also pass the spores of Histoplasmosis in their droppings. The fungus infects the soil under their roosts and after percolating for a year or two, dust from the soil passes the disease to humans. At Fort Knox, the starling roost was on the bridal path and so there was some concern about dust stirred up by horses. However, Histoplasmosis is endemic in the area; virtually everyone tested has a titre. Most may have hardly noticed a flu-like illness when they were infected; only rarely was the infection a serious health issue. So, I didn’t try bird control. In the spring, the flocks disperse naturally.
My colleague at Fort Campbell either had a bigger problem or pressure from above to act. His first attempt to kill the birds was a disaster. The technique is to wait for a cold night and spray the birds in their roost with a mixture of water and detergent. The idea is that the birds’ feathers lose their water repellancy and they freeze to death. Long story short, the night wasn’t cold enough and the birds meerly got a bath. It would have been a good idea to give up, but he tried again. “Success” this time and millions of birds died. The next morning, the Louisville paper had a front page photo of a starling coated in ice and frozen in place perched on a branch. It was the most pathetic looking bird you can imagine; heartwrenching – which is a pretty good trick for an invasive species with so much not to like about it.
Good you weren’t sitting ‘under’ that flock.
Amazing to watch, but not so much a flock of birds as a swarm of locusts.