Starlings dance Bashny.Net

In the Scottish town of Gretna Green from late autumn to early spring, you can watch amazing birds "airshow". During the annual migration to winter in Scotland arrive European starlings (sturnus vulgaris), driven from their homes by frost in Russia and Scandinavia. Soaring, flocks of these birds, like a huge black clouds form in the sky fanciful shapes.

1. The annual migration of starlings reminds us that winter is on the way: Each year the birds arrive here from colder places and remain until spring. Their wintering habitat is located in the southern part of the British Isles, but birds are especially numerous in the small Scottish town of Gretna Green, where these photographs were taken. (Owen Humphreys-PA / Landov)



2. During wintering starlings every day suit "air dance": about an hour before sunset, from all the hordes flock of birds. (Owen Humphreys-PA / Landov)



3. During the winter every day at sunset a lot of starlings "start to dance" in the sky, executing collective pirouettes. (Owen Humphreys-PA / Landov)



4. More than one million birds, flying up and down the great flocks, uninformed people can be easily mistaken for fast looming storm cloud. (Owen Humphreys-PA / Landov)



5. migrate millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape the winter cold, the birds gather in flocks incredible shapes. (Owen Humphreys-PA / Landov)



6. Scientists are not sure exactly how and why starlings make similar celestial dance. Even complex algorithmic models can not explain acrobatic starlings, which change their direction for the hundredth of a millisecond to avoid a collision, and along with depredation. (Owen Humphreys-PA / Landov)



7. Despite this show of strength, the number of starlings in the UK in recent years has fallen markedly, possibly due to the reduction of nesting sites. However, the birds still inhabit rural pastures UK, going to bed after "an evening of ballet».



8. Collective bird pirouettes so impressive that in Gretna Green tourists come to watch the evening "airshow».



9. Many people come here to witness the flying huge group of several thousand individuals, while they simultaneously repeated turns, parry and land on the ground, spilling over a large area.