Flocks of acrobatic starlings have long delighted observers, from Shakespeare to the present day. The birds—sometimes by the thousands—often seem to move as one, coursing through the air at breakneck speeds, turning on an instant.

We recently published video of a beautiful starling swarm in the Netherlands. So many wings can be heard flapping in that video that it's easy to get why starling swarms are called murmurations.

This week, another mesmerizing video of a starling swarm was published, this time in the U.K.'s Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire (see above). That video shows more intriguing patterns in the sky as thousands of birds twist and turn in unison.

Starling murmurations tend to occur most often at dusk, when the birds gather together for