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Emerging from the reeds and wetlands of southern Denmark, a storm of starlings rains on the horizon. The group of birds looks like drops of ink on a parchment cloth, sprayed into a dim sky where they dive and spin at the same time. The birds fold like waves on a shoreline and twist into abstract formations that loom over the marshes.
The phenomenon, known as starling noise in English or 'black sun' in Danish, lasts only a few minutes or even seconds. But it left a lasting impression on Danish photographer Søren Solkær, who first witnessed the spectacle when he was ten years old.
"At the time it was by far the wildest thing I had ever seen," Solkær recalls.
Over the next forty years, Solkær built a career as a portrait photographer, traveling the world to capture iconic images of the world's biggest rock stars: Amy Winehouse, Metallica, Paul McCartney, and Led Zeppelin, to name a few. But during a retrospective of his career in 2017, Solkær was inspired to try something new.
"The first thing that came to my mind was the rustling of starlings... this big piece of calligraphy in the sky," he told CNN. He started photographing the birds near his family home in southern Denmark, before following several flocks on their migrations across Europe, from Ireland to Italy.
Solkær's latest photo book, 'Starling', published last month, charts this migration journey, and in doing so he hopes to inspire a closer relationship with nature.
"One of the reasons it continues to fascinate me is that it is new and unique every time it happens. The shapes appearing in the sky occur only once in the history of the world," he said. "I think that's a really good reason to photograph them and try to capture them and share them with others."
A sunset spectacle
Solkær first published images of starlings in his 2020 photo book "Black Sun," describing it as "an investigation into where I come from and dealing with those childhood memories." After several seasons of photographing birds near the Wadden Sea in Denmark and neighboring countries, Solkær decided to expand the scope of the project and track the birds as they migrated across the continent.
European starlings can migrate as far north as the Arctic Circle in summer, and as far south as North Africa in winter. It is during these migrations that the rustling is most common, although the exact reason behind it remains a mystery: a widely accepted theory is that starlings gather in these dense aerial formations before sunset to make themselves appear larger to predators. But scientists also suspect that this is possible to attract other starlings to the roost and generate warmth in the cold winters.
Using Instagram hashtags to pinpoint where the rumors took place, Solkær chose his destinations based on the size of the flock and the presence of predators, such as peregrine falcons, as the starlings make the "most beautiful, graphic shapes" when attacked . But even with the best plans, nature is unpredictable.
"It's so short-lived: you can take five good pictures in half a minute, but then nothing for the next six weeks," Solkær said. "It doesn't happen every night. The really amazing formations normally occur once or twice in the winter."
One of the largest winter populations settles in Rome, Italy. The urban landscape and southern evening light provided a sharp contrast to Solkær's work in the Danish marshes.
"It's the same phenomenon, but the light is much more golden and the sky is very beautiful," Solkær explains. While many of his earlier recordings of the murmurations used a monochrome aesthetic, he began to play with color and also incorporate architecture into some images.
Rome also provided the perfect backdrop for Solkær to explore the relationship between wild and urban environments, through the city's difficult relationship with starlings.
"Rome spends a lot of money trying to scare the birds and get them out of the city because they make a big mess of things," he said, adding that the city had hired a falconer to fend off the starlings to be scared.
However, starlings have been a fixture in Rome since ancient times. "They used to think that the shapes and behavior of the starlings were the gods trying to communicate with people," Solkær explains. Soothsayers read the auspicious signs, or bad omens, that influenced political decisions. Drawing from this history of mysticism, Solkær captures a sense of awe with fantastic formations framed above the spiers of ancient architecture against a backdrop of pastel cotton candy clouds.
"It's a completely different experience than standing in a field in the middle of nowhere. But I think it's just as magical; it seems even more surreal when you're in the city and see the same thing happening. It doesn't fit in very well, and that is also the cause of the great battle between the city of Rome and the birds," says Solkær.
From macro to micro
Although starlings are often thought of as a common bird in Europe and North America, their numbers have been declining for decades - with a 53% decline between 1995 and 2018 - and in Britain they are Red Listed of endangered species.
"There are now much fewer birds than before," Solkær said, pointing to the increasing use of land for agriculture, which has reduced available food.
After the success of 'Black Sun', many biologists and ornithologists contacted Solkær - inspiring him to look at starlings not only from a distance, but also up close.
In collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, he produced two series of images taken through microscopes.
"They have really beautiful metal springs when you get up close," says Solkær. "I tried to take the big, macro world I saw in the sky and see if I could find some of the same universal patterns if I got really close."
An ornithologist - an eighty-year-old professor at the Natural History Museum - provided Solkær with a stuffed starling from the museum's collection, which he could photograph.
"I could tell from the small tag on his paw that he had been killed in 1918 when he flew into a lighthouse, (but) he still looked perfect," Solkær said.
He photographed the bird under light and electron microscopes, magnifying the starling up to 12,000 times. The detailed images show the dense but delicate strands of feathers, which resemble map outlines, palm fronds and tree trunks, and provide a striking contrast to his open-air shots of the murmurs.
"The closer I got, the bigger it seemed - like mountains and river deltas," Solkær said.
The project has sparked Solkær's interest in other conservation photography projects. He is now embarking on a project on dragon blood trees, a rare species endemic to the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, and a book on spirituality and nature in Bhutan, South Asia.
"Right now, at least for me, there's no point in focusing on rock stars," he said. "I think it is very necessary to communicate these stories now and inspire a closer connection with nature."
When it comes to birds, Solkær is considering other species for potential projects: dunlins, for example, a gray bird with a white underside that performs a similar aerial dance to starlings; or lurid green parakeets in Australia, which contrast sharply with the red rocks of the outback and the vast blue sky.
"I don't think I'll write another starling book," Solkær said. But he pauses for a moment and catches himself: "Actually, I think I'm going to Sardinia in ten days to photograph starlings. So who knows?"
Videos courtesy of Søren Solkær.
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