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Starling murmuration makes shape of bird over lake in Ireland
An incredible starling murmuration in the shape of a bird has been photographed in Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, by James Crombie.
The starling swarm, which sees thousands of birds whirling in the sky, might be in the perfect form of a giant bird, but it took James several weeks to find the perfect location to shoot footage of them.
"I'm usually a sports photographer, so for a while I've had a bit of time to think about other things. I could see they were making shapes. I kept going back, to get the image I had in my head," James told the Irish Times.
"A friend of mine, Colin Hogg, lives near the lake, and he said to me last year that the starlings would make a great picture. They nest in the reeds around the lake, and they move every four or five days, towards sunset, and when they move they make shapes."
Timing is everything when it comes to photographing the starlings, says James, explaining that they could be gone from the lake in a matter of days. As the ever-changing murmurations protect themselves from predators in the sky, you never know which way they will fly.
After taking between 400 and 500 photographs, James captured the winning image at around 6pm on Tuesday 2nd March. "It paid off. We were delighted when we captured a unique shape in the sky after many weeks of boring shots. Literally the sky was alive," he adds.
For more images of starlings photographed by James, head over to the Irish Times.
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