Blackbird murmuration

Back from Bosque with a hard drive full of images! It was great to get away and have a break from all the personal and health issues. Please forgive my little meltdown from my last post, it was not directed at anyone or anything in particular, just an overreaction to people being helpful.

One of the great things you can see at Bosque is large flocks of blackbirds (these are red-winged blackbirds) doing what would be called a "murmuration" if it were starlings. While not represented in the huge numbers seen with starling flocks, the result is the same. When the birds all turn so that their wings are facing the evening sun they look very light as opposed to the dark backlit lighting we normally think of. I used Topaz Impression and a couple of textures on this one. A huge amount of detail was lost to get the file size down to BPN specs.

I really like the colors, composition, and action. It's good that you caught the flock with a few birds in front of the sky, too. That adds a lot to the appeal. Although I've seen murmuration, I never knew there was a term for it. It looks like -- based on a quick search -- there's been a good deal of analytical study of it, and there could be some important far-reaching implications.

The slightly jumbled-together texture effect fits the jumbled-together birds very well. (Amazing how they do that!)

What would you think about cloning over the light area in the UR -- it pulls my attention a little bit. But then I'm not noted for my ability to concentrate.

Thanks Dennis and Diane! I did think about that patch of sky in the upper right corner, I just wondered if the viewer would get a sense of the mountain in the distance without that definition in both upper corners. Definitely a good thought.

Interesting shapes and colours Kerry. I like how the flock almost melds into the tree leaves. Hope you came back with a treasure trove of pictures!

Kerry,

Greetings. I particularly like how the shape of the murmuration in respect to the background trees. I've never seen a group of this size of red wind blackbirds. Very cool.

It always seemed that this word was murmuring in the back of my mind ;-) thanks for applying it here. (I can add it to words I've learned on BPN with "leucistic").

Cheers,

-Michael-

Outstanding capture of this murmuration (what a great word!). It looks like a tree, with the birds being the leaves. I like the repetition of roundish, tree-like shapes. Upper right corner distracts me a bit also. Great image, Wonderful processing.