In Frames | Starling murmurations
The Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling on December 26, 2023. It is an exploration of starlings, which are passerine (perching) birds belonging to the family Sturnidae.
A starling is a fairly unremarkable bird in isolation, but when starlings swarm, thousands of them come together to form a swirling, undulating cloud – an awesome new life-like thing suspended in the air – called a murmuration. Every starling involved in this enthralling formation is simply tailing the flight of a few birds around it, but as thousands follow this deceptively simple ‘rule’, the murmuration as a whole acquires its hypnotic fluidic quality.
We don’t know why starlings flock in this way. Scientists have advanced various theories, including monitoring, confusing or escaping hawks and falcons – their predators – as well as have drawn inspiration from this and other similar behaviour to design swarming robots that can do many things from coordinating disaster relief to fighting cancer.
Mr. Solkær has photographed starling murmurations in Denmark, England, Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands; his new monograph has 138 images. He has also been examining the cellular peculiarities of starling feathers at the University of Copenhagen. His work is available at sorensolkaer.shop.
(Text by Vasudevan Mukunth)
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
Danish photographer Søren Solkær released his photographic monograph Starling recently in Dec 2023.
