Yesterday the fields and forests of Huntley Meadows Park were alive with the sound of birds, lot of birds. I didn’t get a close enough look to identify the black birds, but they seem to be Rusty Blackbirds or Grackles. As they foraged, they moved from one spot to another in a great cloud of birds, all flying at the same time.
I tried to capture images of the birds with different backgrounds and especially like the first one below, which reminds me of some pf Escher’s pen-and-ink drawings of birds.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I love to see large flocks of bird in flight. I love that sense of community purpose. And watching murmurations is just spellbinding.
Ah, the joy of having the opportunity to use the word “murmuration”–it not a word that easy to fit into an everyday conversation.
It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it?
When we lived in NJ our house backed up into a wooded park. One afternoon, the back was amassed with black birds. They were all over the place. The limbs of the trees were thick with birds. I managed to catch the invasion on my cell phone but it the pictures didn’t compare to the actual invasion. Good job in catching the incredible mass of the birds.
Looks like an abstract painting, beautiful!
Great shots Mike!
Thanks, John. I snapped away,uncertain that I would be able to capture the activity of the birds, and was surprised and delighted by the results.
We’ve had large flocks of starlings in our part of Omaha in the past, but I haven’t seen them for years. I’ve missed them.