An immense, whooshing kinetic sculpture darts over the Netherlands, brought to you by thousands of beating hearts & flapping wings:
The art of flying is a short film about “murmurations”: the mysterious flights of the Common Starling. It is still unknown how the thousands of birds are able to fly in such dense swarms without colliding. Every night the starlings gather at dusk to perform their stunning air show.
Because of the relatively warm winter of 2014/2015, the starlings stayed in the Netherlands instead of migrating southwards. This gave filmmaker Jan van IJken the opportunity to film one of the most spectacular and amazing natural phenomena on earth.
My sister sees these swarms regularly by her farm in Oregon.
It’s funny that what to us is a “stunning air show” might be an annoying traffic jam with no place to park for the birds.