A Lesson from Starlings

I remember as a child sitting in the car and seeing the trees bustling like they were filled with something struggling to emerge. I was informed that the tree was full of starlings and that starlings were pests. It’s true in many ways. Starlings are an invasive species, that is they are not native to this country and in their rapid population growth can impact other native species. This is not so great. But starlings are here to stay and, in spite of their troublesome qualities, they exhibit one of my favorite natural occurrences in the world: murmurations.

If you’ve never seen a murmuration, I encourage you to stop and google it. There are heaps of videos and images of murmurations in action that I cannot being to describe accurately in the words to come. Murmurations occur when a flock of starlings gather together and fly through the sky as one body. They form a cloud-like structure that moves in curved lines. In places where the density of birds becomes higher, there are darker lines that appear. Murmurations are living, breathing, shifting, amorphous art.

I came to love them while living in Northeast Iowa. The stretches of farmland highway were the perfect setting to catch murmurations at play. It didn’t hurt that when I first began to see them with some frequency I was studying the intersections of theatre and installation art. Much of my work had begun to take shape around charcoal drawings filled with lines that begged for movement and making spaces where these works could come to life in human and media forms. Murmurations were very, very much my aesthetic and continue to be.

There is no greater proof of my love for murmurations than my husband’s birthday gift to me this year. He surprised me with a print of a murmuration to keep in my office. It hit me right in the feels. I was touched by his memory of my love for these starling flocks in motion, but I was also struck by the intent of me taking it to my office. Admittedly, there is some sadness there. It is difficult to realize how many hours we spend away from those we love most in order to do our work in the world. I am grateful that my job gives me flexibility and supports my family, not to mention that I am deeply passionate about the work I get to do. I know this is not true for all and it is a privilege I do not take for granted. The real essence of why this murmuration touches me so as an office presence is that it contributes something I need. A reminder of my spouse’s generosity, yes. A token of beauty to admire and root me in my creative past, yes. But there’s something about murmurations themselves.

Occasionally, I get lost in wikipedia holes. I look up one interesting fact that is related to something I read or heard and next thing I know I have anecdotes about Joaquin Pheonix that I share out of nowhere. (This is real. This happened yesterday.) Recently, we saw a small murmuration in the Kroger parking lot. I pointed it out to my son, whose newfound revelation that things can be in the sky made for a beautiful moment. When I got home, I did some digging into what makes murmurations work. I learned that there are two traits that scientists have been able to identify in their study of these starlings. First: Starlings in murmurations are finely attuned to the movements of just the seven birds closest to them. In a cloud of hundreds, even hundreds of thousands of birds, just seven are kept in view. Second: Despite this focus on seven birds, starlings can move simultaneously with birds dozens of steps away. Scientists cannot identify how the birds know, but theories are that something has been ingrained into them (through DNA, evolution, starling cultural norms) that allows them to be aware somehow of the greater movement of the murmuration. So these starlings who create beautiful movement, do so through focusing on their closest seven birds, but staying aware of the greater shifts in the group.

What a vision of how to be in the world. So many people I know feel the weight of care taking. Aging relatives need medical and emotional support. The injustices of the world are confronting us with an urgent need to act. People of faith are compelled to care for others. But here are starlings, going about things seven birds at a time. It’s not likely the same seven birds, but it’s always seven. If they attempted to expand their circle of awareness to a larger group, the whole murmuration would be thrown off and fall apart. So who are the seven people that I can reasonably care for? The seven people I can hold close in my heart at this moment and really love without spreading myself too thin? And then, how do I give myself these boundaries while preserving my awareness of the larger whole? This, I think, is the challenge and lesson from starlings. A call to recognize that in order to create beautiful things, in order to sustain a community that is changing and shifting, we must know our boundaries, be in close relationship with our people, and stay in touch with the needs of the larger body. This is the thought that my new office murmuration will bring. This is the root of my gratitude for this gift. May we all see the gift in starlings and their murmurations.