One evening in November a dark fingerprint appears in the sky, swelling and stretching as a flock of starlings gather. People on the ground stop their conversations and watch as groups of birds arrive from every direction, coming together to form a vast cloud. The flock pulses as a single wing beat, unfurling like a butterfly, twisting a spiral, coiling over and throwing fluted ribbons above the pink horizon. The onlookers marvel that so many birds can fly so close and so fast, can change direction on an instant and move together without colliding.
The next morning everyone is talking about starlings, whether chatting to colleagues or the postman, conversations are dominated by the acrobatic birds. It makes the evening news, a filler for a slow day, a sign of the changing season, an excuse for the reporters to get some fresh air. Those who have missed the spectacle resolve to take a look, pulling on their wellington boots and gathering outside in the mud to watch the starlings’ show.
Everyone tries to describe the sight, but the starlings move faster than lips and words are never enough, the birds have already formed another shape and are flying another pattern. Between dumbstruck silences and awestruck exclamations the spectators wonder how they plan their flight. Is there a top bird, a leader who guides the others in their erratic route? Do sheep-dog birds set the choreography from the edges? Or does each starling respond only to its neighbours and fly only with an eye to not colliding?
Watching starlings becomes very popular; it is the thing to do on a November evening. As dusk falls each day, crowds gather around countryside hedgerows or urban parks, equipped with wellies and weighty cameras, to watch the birds staging their wild displays.
Murmuration enters the vocabulary. Everyone knows they are watching a murmuration of starlings preparing for their evening roost. They compare their sightings with a sophisticated turn of phrase that reflects a developing interest. A natural competitiveness soon emerges about the quantity of viewings and the quality of recordings. People call up loved ones and friends and even mere acquaintances, to drop a reference to their new pastime into the conversation and bask in the glow of being trendy.
Television viewing plummets and camera sails soar. All winter they tramp outside to photograph the flock formations and upload their clips onto Youtube, to tweet their sightings and blog their thoughts. Murmuration becomes the new buzzword. Political commentators discuss the murmuration of a nation, corporate brainstorming sessions become murmurations and pensioners complain of hooded youths murmurating in the shopping centre. All the magazines run cover stories on starlings, interviewing celebrities about their bird-watching habits, reporting tales of X-factor contestants who take starling-spotting minibreaks and Hollywood actors who demand starling formations for their weddings.
A public debate develops about the purpose of such beauty and spectacle. Some argue that it allows the birds to avoid and confuse predators, others that it helps them to conserve energy, while others insist that it is merely Nature showing off. The flocks of starlings lend themselves to metaphors about human life and human society. ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely,’ everyone agrees, ‘to view humanity as one flock all flying together, multiple and single all at once.’
The murmuration moves like liquid in the fluid air, always expanding and contracting, always pushing to escape itself and pulling back together. Are the birds trying to flee each other, or trying to merge as one? Or are they trying to balance their individual selves with a collective harmony? Does each bird move with free will or is it compelled by animal instinct? The people in their boots by the hedgerows wonder all these things and they ask each other and write to the RSPB for answers.
Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the flock turns. Perhaps an individual breaks out alone and is followed by the rest. Perhaps the top bird leads, or the sheep-dog birds, or another. Perhaps they change direction as one, tiring of the path they have taken. Watching starlings becomes passé. By February it is so last month. The mud dries on the wellington boots, left abandoned by the doormat, then cleared away into a cupboard. The camera lenses turn onto other subjects, murmuration drops out of Google and Twitter trends, television viewing surges once more.
When a murmuration turns, it moves so swiftly that every bird seems to fly as one. Human eyes cannot distinguish one starling from the many, human reactions are too slow to follow the birds in their flight. But there is always a tiny moment at the turning point when some birds change direction, while others continue on their path.
For a while, some people continue to pull on their boots and tramp out to the hedgerow in the cold. Others watch them pass by from the smug warmth of their houses, wondering aloud that they have not bored with the birds. Then one by one those by the hedgerow catch up with the shifting trends and drift home, embarrassed to be behind the times. Soon nobody watches the murmurations and people are amazed that they spent their winter evenings out in the mud. Now they have new pastimes and they call up loved ones and friends and even mere acquaintances to keep them up-to-date.
Outside, the birds fly on all winter, oblivious and beautiful.
Murmuration
Short Stories
C. S. Mee
Writer