Starlings swoosh like brushstrokes across the sky in this dazzling short

A project by the Barcelona-born photographer Xavi Bou, Ornithographies finds beauty in the patterns that birds trace across the sky. In photographs and in short films, Bou condenses time by leaving impressions captured over several seconds as single frames. This process forms images that offer wondrous new perspectives on birds and their behaviours. In his short film Murmurations, Bou documents a sight familiar to many – starlings moving across the sky, en masse – and, by echoing the impressions of these hundreds of birds, builds spellbinding visuals at the intersection of science and art, and human and nonhuman creation.