Bird Tornado

Wow! I don't know if it's photoshopped, but I can imagine it happening. Any idea what the species is? Starling?

Bob

Maybe it's just the low resolution, but are you sure it's really even birds? From here it looks like a bunch of black dots on a blue background, reminding me of a computer model of a tornado.

Hmm. Is there food or something down there that all the birds are diving for? I'm no ornithologist, but it looks like they'd have to be either ascending or descending en masse to get that effect.

These are, according to the photographer, a flock of Sturnus vulgaris moving into a defensive formation against a raptor. His portfolio includes a much better picture of them utilizing the classic exclamation point defense.

They're very clever birds, you know. Years ago, I was fortunate enough to see a flock spell out, 'Holy crap! It's a raptor! Let's get the flock out of here!!!' It would have been really impressive, except for the fact that raptors can't read.

Ha ha! There, folks! I could recognise the species from that photo! And some of you thought they were just black dots!

There are a few clips on youtube of starlings (now that sounds exciting, doesn't it!), so I'll just link to one from the RSPB Otmoor Starling Roost.

Bob

*I* didn't think it was photoshopped -- I've seen the starling flocks in Aberdeen do some very, very similar things.

The starling flocks, when they gather in to the city in the evening, are truly amazing things to watch.

I used to watch flocks of starlings over Canberra (where they're introduced vermin) so I'm not surprised to see this. Forget rollercoasters: IMAX theatres should be dedicated full-time to showing starling flocks in 3D.

"is it PhotoShopped"

I think it is. Sky is too blue and formation too perfect.

Even if Starlings do such things, and, by amazing coincidence, they could form such perfect shape, it is more likely to be photoshop.

BTW - photoshop took much enjoyment from watching photos. You don't marvel "how they did it"!, you know that magical vista was produced in 15 minutes from crappy images.

Could this be a flock of swallows or swifts going to roost?

monster from Lost?

What makes this almost certainly an "enhanced" photo is the neatness of the edges an the near perfect distribution of "birds" inside. There's not enough randomness to the distribution. It may be a hoax. It may be an over-worked enhancement of a real event (multiple sharpenings, contrast tweaking). It may be something in between.

I have watched Vaux's Swifts and starlings swirl into roosting spaces. Swifts especially can appear superficially tornado-like. And I estimate the number of dots to be between 30 and 50 thousand which is certainly not unreasonable for a starling flock.

I would treat this photo with lots of skepticism until some independent corroboration can be had.

After looking at several of the flocking starling YouTube clips linked to the one provided by Bob, above, I think it is real.