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As we seek calm and reason amid human conflict and chaos, can we learn anything from other animals that share the planet? 

Have a look at three videos capturing a hypnotic sight — the so-called murmuration of starlings. Witness thousands of these chunky, gregarious songbirds undulating in synchronized waves. 

Out of curiosity, I asked AI to try to describe the phenomenon. It did not disappoint: 

The murmurations bloom and dissolve in the twilight, dark ribbons unspooling across the sky.

They move like ink dropped into water, swirling into new shapes before the old ones fade.

A living cloud of birds that twists, folds, and ripples across the sky as if it were a single, fluid organism. 

Each bird constantly adjusts its speed and direction in response to the seven or so nearest neighbors, creating a kind of collective intelligence.

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Putting aside controversies about starlings — including their designation as an invasive species, owing to their introduction to North America from their native Europe in 1890 — something about their instinctive coordinated behavior, their mutual cooperation, seems an uplifting (pun intended) message for our times.  

Enjoy the short films below — and be sure to turn up your sound so you can hear their wings beating, reminiscent of ocean waves cresting and crashing before receding, only to set in motion another cycle.  

A fragment from Jan Van Ijken’s award-winning The Art of Flying, filmed in the Netherlands (2 minutes).

Colin Harrison films the phenomenon in Middleton Moor, Derbyshire, UK (11+ minutes).

Søren Solkær films the birds in Friesland for his project Black Sun (4+ minutes).