Happy Nice Mall

It was a February evening in 2020 and I was standing in the swamps of the Dutch northern province of Friesland. Above my head, hundreds of thousands of starlings swirled, dived and dived dramatically, darkening the sky.

The sound of its wings echoed through the air, creating wind patterns on the surface of the still water.

The transfixing scene was the culmination of the three years I spent following it. european starlings along migration routes across the continent.

My only friend that night was a stranger who had stopped to watch the birds – an old woman who had witnessed the incredible sight for close to half an hour.

After the birds settled in the wide reeds, they turned to me with tears in their eyes. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.

I had to agree with him.

After a 25-year international career photographing the world’s most famous musicians and actors, I recently returned to the landscape of my childhood in Southern Denmark to photograph a visual phenomenon I first witnessed as a child.

I started by photographing the large starling grouse that occurs in the northern reaches of the Wadden Sea, a coastal wetland. largest uninterrupted system of intertidal sand and mud flatsIt’s on the UNESCO World Heritage list, stretching from the northern coasts of the Netherlands and Germany to the marshes of southern Denmark.

Here, each spring and fall, the birds come to life with the swirling displays of hundreds of thousands of starlings as they make their way through their seasonal migration – an event locally known as “sorting plenty” or the “black sun.”

Later, I expanded the scope of my photographic research to include Rome, England, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain.

There is no single definitive explanation for why starlings purr, but most scientists theorize that this behavior helps protect birds from predators. (Another possible explanation is that murmurs may help starlings stay warm in the evenings by getting larger roosts.) Acting together as one large entity both confuses predators and reduces risk for each bird, a phenomenon called the “dilution effect.” ”

Most of the dramatic performances I have witnessed occurred when one or more falcons or hawk starlings attacked their flock.

What is more difficult to explain, however, is how the birds are able to move so closely while their movements are so tightly coordinated. Studies show that every starling six or seven nearest neighborsa number that seems to optimize the balance between group cohesion and individual effort.

As in the movement of shoals of fish and middle age herdsshows the characteristics of what is called the movement of starlings. off-scale behavioral correlationmeans that a change in the status of a single starling can and can affect all other starlings in the herd, regardless of the size of the herd.

In creating this series of images, I was inspired by a number of other art forms, including classical landscape painting, calligraphy and calligraphy. Japanese woodblock prints. I was also inspired by the birds themselves.

When starlings act as a single unified organism and defend themselves against the sky, they create a powerful visual statement, like a calligraphic brushstroke. Lines and shapes emerge in the swarm, enlivening physical abstractions and evoking patterns created by intervening waves.

The graphic and organic forms of starling purrs range from the meditative to the profoundly dramatic, as they perform a breathtaking ballet with life-or-death consequences.

Sometimes the swarm appears to have the unifying power of superfluids that change shape in an endless stream.

From geometry to organic, from solid to fluid, from material to ether, from reality to dream: this is the moment I’m trying to capture, just a fragment of infinity.

Soren Solkær Danish photographer. his latest book “Black sun,” Contains over 100 photos of starling purring. You can follow their work. Facebook and Instagram.