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Murmuration: Science behind Amazing Ever-Changing Flight Patterns of Birds

Shikha Saxena
3 min readJan 11, 2022

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Amazing phenomenon of nature observed by lucky few

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

We all have seen the flying birds either single one or flying in groups. Have you ever encountered a rare phenomenon where hundreds or thousands of birds fly together in sync making patterns in sky? This is called Murmuration: Amazing Ever-Changing Flight Patterns of Birds!

Starling Birds

Starlings or Sturnus Vulgaris, are medium sized passerine birds, of family “Sturnidae”. The “Sturnidae” comes from Latin word Sturnus. Asian species are called Mynas and many African species are called glossy starlings because of their plumage.

What is Murmuration?

Murmurations are groups of Starlings moving and flying together in huge form of clouds in sky, creating patterns in sky. They form/write geometric mathematical abstractions in sky with patterns.

They swoon, twist, turn and swirl in sky together making shape shifting clouds of birds just before dusk near their roosting sites.

Observed one such huge European Starling murmuration in the sky, while driving back home after family outing, yesterday near North Campus of University of Buffalo, in Buffalo, NY. The starlings thrive in Western New York and…

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Shikha Saxena
Shikha Saxena

Written by Shikha Saxena

A Technical Writer, an artist and blogger by choice. Passionate about reading , writing and editing, NY.http://www.shikhasaxena.com and https://www.dnabox.co/

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