/ˌmɜːmjʊˈreɪʃ(ə)n/ · noun
MURMURATION
from Latin murmurātiō — a low, continuous sound; a flock of starlings in flight.
a thousand birds · one mind · no leader
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Plate I · Brighton Pier · December
A thousand starlings, none of them in charge. Each bird reads only its nearest few, and bends the same way half a heartbeat later — and the sky borrows a shape.
in a sentence
At dusk, a murmuration of starlings folded the sky into a single restless thought, and then unfolded it again.
A thousand birds. One borrowed shape.