What is this? Birds? They don’t seem to move like it.

[Johndoe420]

Saw this awhile back. Haven't shared just for reasons but I have more videos. A military helicopter came by very close the next day. I don't want to say much else. If this is anything worth looking more into I will happily provide more videos.

 

[Mick West]

They look like birds. the movement looks a bit like a murmuration, but the white color suggests something like seagulls.

Here's a video of some seagulls that I took.

 

[Johndoe420]

I can see the resemblance. That's what I figured but they would disappear and make odd formations like they were drones. I'll attach my other two captures but I suppose seagulls is the most plausible. Thanks

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I agree that these are birds. And likely seagulls. The rhythm of the wingbeats is right and this is how they flock. The only thing that makes them look mysterious is that the image is going in and out of focus. Was the camera set to automatic focus?

 

[captancourgette]

Yeah looks just like a murmuration, they can look pretty amazing
Watch ~1:46 you see them create a picture of a bird

 

[jarlrmai]

Gulls don't specifically murmurate in my experience, it's hard to tell with the lack of focus but this could just be a swarm of gulls feeding on high up insects.

You often see mass emergences of insects and then birds feeding on them in mid air, people don't usually thing of gulls doing this but it's fairly common.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sONq9oxVOmk


Often its low to the ground but if the insects are high up the gulls will be as well.

It does seems a bit dense though, but there are other mostly white birds that might form predator evasion groups like waders etc.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Doing a Google search... I'm running across some things that say that only starlings murmurate. And that murmuration is a kind of flocking. When does flocking become murmuration? It seems that murmuration involves individual birds flying in random directions and other birds following their lead, while flocking is more purposeful...???

So what are these plovers doing?

 

[jarlrmai]

It does seem to be split online but the term whilst most often applied to Starlings, seems to be used for other flocking behaviour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour

As a term, swarming is applied particularly to insects, but can also be applied to any other entity or animal that exhibits swarm behaviour. The term flocking or murmuration can refer specifically to swarm behaviour in birds, herding to refer to swarm behaviour in tetrapods, and shoaling or schooling to refer to swarm behaviour in fish. Phytoplankton also gather in huge swarms called blooms, although these organisms are algae and are not self-propelled the way animals are. By extension, the term "swarm" is applied also to inanimate entities which exhibit parallel behaviours, as in a robot swarm, an earthquake swarm, or a swarm of stars.

But the term is overwhelming used in general to apply to Starlings because their murmurations are the most spectacular and well known.

 

[Johndoe420]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Here are last two videos I got. (Hopefully I did not upload one of these already). I could send the video of the military helicopter that came by that was low as hell but it's grainy footage from it being sent to me by my wife. Only I'm an iPhone guy. I guess just a coincidence

 

[jarlrmai]

If you can provide date/time and approx location of the helicopter and it's within the last 3 years we can see if it comes up on ADS-B records or not.

If it does we can look at the registration etc and the flight path, if it doesn't then that is also interesting.

 

[Bob Jase]

Seagulls make great UFOs. Back ages ago when I used to have to wait for the bus for school I used to watch them in the distance. When the angle was right the sun would reelect off them so they looked like shiny silver ovals. If'n you only got a glance rather than a long look you'd never be able to tell what they were.

 

[jarlrmai]

The effect is even more dazzling when it's stormy and they are in a lit portion of sky against a dark background.