Making Sense of Murmurations

This public talk with Dr. Natalie Hofmeister will explore how biologists make sense of the murmurations that transform individual starlings into a coordinated whole, and how we identify ourselves in these birds.
When the seasons change, millions of starlings take to the air across the northern hemisphere. It is not the bird’s migration that captures our attention, but a phenomenon called murmuration, when hypnotic gyres of several thousand birds turn as if one body. This behavior, not the bird’s discordant song nor its voracious appetite, draws our attention to the common starling. Captivating as it may be, what exactly is a murmuration? Scientists hypothesize that predators shape these swirling masses of birds, or that the birds themselves congregate to keep warm overnight. But for centuries, humans have found their own reflections in this behavior: starlings sometimes signal a divine judgment, and other times an industrious workforce.