This Video Captures the Mesmerizing Patterns Traced by a Flock of Starlings

Spanish photographer Xavi Bou has spent years capturing the movements of murmurations (or flocks) of starlings through chronophotography, a type of stacked long-exposure. His latest effort is this 2.5-minute short film titled “Murmurations,” which traces the mesmerizing flight patterns of the synchronized birds.

This video is part of Bou’s ongoing Ornitographies project that was started back in 2012.

“My intention is to capture the beauty of the bird’s flight in a single moment, making the invisible visible,” Bou writes. “Ornitographies moves away from the purely scientific practice of Chronophotography that 19th century photographers Eadward Muybridge and Étienne Julies Marey developed.

“It is the balance between art and science, a project of naturalist discovery, and, at the same time, an exercise of visual poetry.”

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