The title of this week’s Random Thoughts is lifted from an old English proverb. The complete proverb says that birds of a feather flock together. It means that people who share similar interests and personalities tend to mutually associate.

Well, this column is for the birds. More specifically it’s about a very unique bird, the starling. These birds of a feather often flock together in an amazing way... starlings are very social birds. 

The first time I saw them in a pack was years ago on Long Island at the Huntington train station. As the sun was going down a huge swarm of them descended on the parking lot of the train station. There must have been hundreds of them.Years later, I witnessed another gathering of the starlings in Middletown. As the sunset began, the starlings showed up to their nesting area near the Galleria.

They live in flocks of various sizes that have dramatic swarming behavior known as murmuration. Murmuration is this synchronized yet seemingly random flock movement that is characterized by erratic direction changes without any observable leader. 

It is called a murmuration, based on the low distinct sounds of  their wings as they fly. The flock makes sharp dives with very quick changes in direction. It is thought that these movements are made to confuse and discourage predators such as falcons, providing a collective protection. 

The shape-shifting amorphous display is rare in nature. Most flocks of birds follow the movements of a designated leader. But starlings are so tightly packed together that for centuries nobody could figure out how they were able to communicate the split-second changes without losing the continuity of the flock.

Recently advanced technology has provided the answer. Studies done on the murmuration have determined that no single bird controls the flock. One leader could not control upwards of 1,000 birds in this ballet-like swarm.

Computer simulations have determined that each bird somehow is synchronized with its seven closest neighbors in the flock. These groupings of seven are tightly constructed and overlap adjacent groups to communicate and influence their movements. Those movements have been determined to be based on three basic factors of attraction, repulsion and angular alignment.

Information about a movement moves across the flock very quickly. The starling can handle the movement quickly because they receive and process certain information faster than most other birds. It is the quick way they process information which often leads to a comparison to the game of telephone that we used to play as a kid. 

In telephone, the messages pass from one person to another and quickly loses information. However, very little information is lost in murmurations.

Starling murmurations can last from a few seconds to up to an hour and can involve a few birds or up to a thousand. It is hypnotic to witness this formation as hundreds of starlings morph into pulsating cloud-like shapes. 

Starlings also have the ability to imitate a large variety of avian species and they also have the ability to mimic other sounds that have nothing to do with living creatures. 

Starlings certainly are a remarkable species... Unfortunately the numbers are dwindling in a dramatic fashion. The main habitats are in  Europe and Asia.

 Their numbers in big cities like Rome have decreased by 60 percent in the past few years. Experts who study their flock patterns say there are fewer numbers in each flock than in previous decades. 

So if you happen to see the wondrous ballet like flight patterns, take out your cell phone and make a movie. 

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.