Watch: Excited locals capture a beautiful and uplifting video of murmurations silhouetted in the Edinburgh sky
A video of beautiful murmurations in the Edinburgh twilight sky has been lifting spirits on social media.
The video, posted by Mike McNulty but taken by his daughter Christina, shows two murmurations dancing across the skies, accompanied by the ooh’s and aah’s of the captive audience.
It was filmed in the Corstorphine area of the Capital.
Murmurations is the word to describe a group of starlings, who swoop, twist and twirl in unison, usually just before dusk.
Mike said: “I just happened to look outside our bedroom window and saw several groups of these starlings around 4.30pm on Friday night.
"As you can see they started to merge so I shouted to my wife and daughter Christina to come through.
"Christina is a TV/ Film student at Edinburgh College so immediately filmed this short clip on her phone.
"I’ve not seen this before in Edinburgh but evidently it was more common in the past but perhaps because of lack of numbers we don’t see it so much now.”
Rebecca McLennan also managed to see the elegant birds as they settled in her garden afterwards, which she was also able to capture on video.
Starlings move like this as it provides safety in numbers, and the speed and unpredictability of their movement offers protection from predators such as peregrine falcons.
These murmurations are mostly seen during the autumn and winter months.
The RSPB say that the starling population are on the critical list of UK birds most at risk as their numbers have dropped by 80% in recent years.