"As if out of the Bible of science fiction, a cloud appeared,

a cloud of dots like iron filings which a magnet underneath the paper undulates.

It dartingly darkened in spots, paled, pulsed, compressed, distended, yet held an identity firm:

a flock of starlings, as much one thing as a rock.

One will moved above the trees the liquid and hesitant drift…

…And as I watched, one bird, prompted by accident or will to lead, ceased resting; and, lifting in a casual billow, the flock ascended as a lady’s scarf,

transparent, of gray, might be twitched by one corner, drawn upward and then, decided against, negligently tossed toward a chair: the southward cloud withdrew into the air.

Long had it been since my heart had been lifted as it was by the lifting of that great scarf."

Poem by John Updike — The Great Scarf of Birds

Pictures by Rodrigo Troitiño — March, 2019 — Amsterdam

What Wikipedia says about Murmuration

Flocking behavior is the behavior exhibited when a group of birds, called a flock, are foraging or in flight. There are parallels with the shoaling behavior of fish, the swarming behavior of insects, and herd behavior of land animals.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior)

2 min. video

Here a little fast edited piece. Images captured over my place in Amsterdam — 2019. — Image copyrights Rodrigo Troitiño. Music: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, The Hope.

“The Great Scarf of Birds”