Amazing Starling Photos by Kathryn Cooper
October 23rd, 2023
A simple idea, beautifully executed. The England-based photographer takes sequences of bird flight and combines them into composite images that track the motion of the entire flock. Above, a predator makes a brief chase of this massive murmuration.
The artist writes about the way these birds avoid predators by moving together:
By diluting the risk as the group size increases, the chance of any one individual suffering predation decreases and many eyes means that vigilance increases with the number of individuals.
Most aerial predators (sparrowhawk, peregrine falcon for example) hunt by targeting a single bird. The confusion caused by the constant movement may hinder their ability to lock onto an individual.