ISRAEL: Flocks of starlings form beautiful dark clouds in Israel's sky

Record ID: 397661

  • Title: ISRAEL: Flocks of starlings form beautiful dark clouds in Israel's sky
  • Date: 28th January 2013
  • Summary: ONLOOKERS
  • Embargoed: 12th February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVACL2M3KYDNGV87LQQ4RLU8T0Z8
  • Story Text: Huge flocks of synchronized starlings created beautiful sights of moving dark 'clouds' in the skies of southern Israel on Saturday (January 26).
    Israeli ornithologists and amateur bird watchers flocked to an open field near the southern city of Netivot to get a glance of the rare phenomenon called murmuration.
    Professor Yossi Leshem, director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration at Tel Aviv University, says the synchronized movement is aimed at helping the birds find food and creating a defence mechanism against birds of prey, which usually try to hunt individual birds and rarely attack big flocks.

    "There are two reasons why few hundred thousands of starlings are coming together in the late evening because: one is to get the information where they have food and they will follow the ones who found the food; the second one is if a hawk is coming to catch one of the starlings, if it (the bird) is by itself it has a problem, but if they are (part of) a big flock they can open and close and move dramatically and then the hawk cannont catch them, and this is a protection against the hawks."
    After a long absence of some 20 years, short distance migrant starlings have returned to Israel, a phenomenon experts find difficult to explain.
    Today hundreds of thousands of starlings inhabit Israel, compared to millions in the past, according to scientific estimations.
    The common starling used to fly to Israel from Russia and Eastern Europe until the early 90's in mind-boggling flocks of millions. For an unknown reason, the number of the small birds migrating over Israel declined dramatically and they could no longer be seen in Israel's skies.
    But in 2012, their numbers began increasing and they were sighted for the first time above the Sea of Galilee.
    Experts say that they are best to watch at dusk, when the birds flock for some 20 minutes of unique aerobatic display before retiring for the night. Their synchronised flyover creates what seems to the eye to be a black cloud that moves and randomly changes direction and form.
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