Thousands of starlings form 'bent spoon' swarm over Israel

[Judi Lynn]

By Brandon Specktor published about 2 hours ago

Starlings travel in large, chaotic flocks called murmurations. Sometimes, they paint the sky with all-too familiar shapes.



A swarm of starlings over Israel form a trippy 'bent spoon' in the sky. (Image credit: Albert Keshet)

For a brief moment in Israel last week, an enormous black shape resembling a twisted teaspoon darkened the sky.

This was not the work of a spoon-bending telepath, but arguably something much cooler: tens of thousands of migrating starlings, swooping and swarming through the sky together in a type of collectively steered flock called a murmuration.

Albert Keshet, a wildlife photographer based in Israel, saw the stunning scene after spending more than five hours recording starlings in the northern Jordan Valley during the last week of 2021. At one point, he saw an entire flock of several thousand starlings take flight, dance through the sky and form an unmistakable spoon shape.

"They held it for a few seconds, then the shape changed to a bent spoon," Keshet told the BBC. A few seconds later, the flock had morphed again — then again, and then again. (You can watch a video showing off the flock's most impressive patterns on Keshet's YouTube page.)

More:
https://www.livescience.com/starling-bent-spoon-murmuration-israel?utm_source=notification

[Demovictory9]

1. love it

[Backseat Driver]

2. I observed a smaller "murmuration" of vocal starlings, hundreds to thousands,

some of which had set down on the grassy court and in the trees not too far beyond my home a few days ago. I let the doggies out, and they all took off screaming together. Have the birds begun migration back to northern locations of the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere already? Sometimes, I've seen small groups of robins in late January gorging on what's left of the crapapples still on the trees and earnestly pecking at semi-frozen lawns, but, hardly seen the likes of ever-present starlings. We've missed out on the terrible winter storms that caused tornados and feet of snow elsewhere last month and so far in January of this New Year! - Currently it's about 20 degrees warmer than it really should be and we haven't had even a small measurable snowfall that sticks. In fact, it's sunny and a bit windy today, more March like. It seems my early Star Magnolia might even bloom out. I used to joke about mid-to-late January being polar/blizzard week(s). Early 5G transmission disturbances in the force? Climate changes along the jet stream pathways? A bit scary, especially the sound, though, like Hitchcox's "The Birds."

[TlalocW]

3. Uri Gellar who claims that he possesses incredible psychic powers

Is originally from Israel, and he came to fame in the 1970s demonstrating these "powers" by bending spoons.

So the takeaway is, he can control birds with his mind as well!

TlalocW