Comments by "Hallands Menved" (@Hallands.) on "Why Do Starlings Flock in Murmurations?" video.

  1. I don't believe the murmurating starlings "bump into one another". And the phenomenon has to do with seasonal migration, not food-finding. The video doesn't "explain" anything, really...
    45
  2. Jeremy Holtom No! Whether perceived for a few human generation as good or bad, it's all part of creation. Scientists, the pulling and the pushing. Would you have us pull scientists apart, suppres curiosity and stop thinking? The current problem of unawareness is perhaps most pronounced in the very belief in dualistic thinking, essentially forcing everything into one of two categories, good or bad. It's not about thinking or not thinking for everyone. For Eckhart Tolle, it was. For me, it wasn't. There's a natural wonder attached to beholding a murmurating. Why would that preclude curiosity as to how, why, when and where? Birds are very sophisticated and social and perhaps much, much more intelligent than we used to think. It's become almost a daily joy for me to discover new ways to interact with birds and I spend a few hours every day observing their behavior and sometimes interacting a little with them. Wild crows are actually interested in talking to humans, did you know? You can have long friendship with both singular rooks and crows, once they've reached a certain maturity – without ever feeding them anything, mind you.
    7
  3. Jeremy Holtom On that we can agree completely. Thinking creates no answers, merely a focus for attention, and we must allow for intuition to pose suggestions. And our egomaniacal identification with thoughts is certainly blocking us off from the One Eternal Creator. Exept it not a "flow, entity, place" or anything conceptual. "It" is the One Absolute Not-Thing that is before the universe was.
    5
  4. Rachel Bellenoit Yes it does! You may have some resident starlings, but the wast majority is moving south in fall...
    2
  5. Rachel Bellenoit Yes, it's the same in Europe. But residents are short distance migrants nevertheless, both places. The difference in number is due to the peculiar fact that long distance migrants convene (murmurate) with short distance even though they have different destinations...
    2
  6. Jeremy Holtom That's so nice – and rare... When and at what approximate age did you awaken from the woke dream? What was the most significant impact on your way of life, would you say?
    2
  7. Michel B 1. No, they don't ever collide. 2. No, it's an evening phenomenon before roosting, typically autumn and spring when changes in temperature force migration (in temperate zones of course) 3. Yes, they achieve protection against predatory birds.
    2
  8. Michel B Well, the two links reference the same incident in Wales. These 225 starlings wasn't really murmurating, they were a resident flock. The case was investigated by wildlife authorities, who concluded that they had impacted the road with sufficient force to break bones and leave the carcasses bloody. The police returned with the assumption that they'd been trying to avoid a predator, but this is speculation. Ornithologists have pointed out that weather conditions were conductive to sudden, sharp downwinds with localized heavy showers/hails. This is globally a common cause of mass death with flocking birds of small and medium size and doesn't indicate collisions between individual birds. But it does fit the latest scientific finding on starlings, namely that they react to only the closest 5-7 birds when moving together – with a lag 20 times smaller than human reactions. They would have no suspicion anything was amiss, and wouldn't even try to counter the downward push, because the wind would move the neighboring birds simultaneously.
    2
  9. waleed sulaiman. Well, if you look deep enough, I guess everything ends up pointing to The One Eternal Creator, but I don't see why this particular phenomenon should do so more readily. What do you mean by your comment, please?
    1
  10. Devon Really, how naughty of them to not comply with my fine theory! Well, in Northern Europe they do this only when migrating south in fall...
    1
  11. Michel B That's interesting, but the ornithologists in both Denmark and Britain know of no collisions. However, conditions in the US may be significantly different: Much more frequent birds of prey, much larger murmurations and more challenging winds if the terrain is mountainous.
    1
  12. Michel B No, none of the articles (Guardian, Metro) mention in-flight collision!
    1
  13. Michel B Those articles were yours. I don't take the guardian or metroX for more than loose gossip...
    1