A Photographer Takes a One-in-a-Million Photo But Doesn’t Realize It’s Special Until He Gets Home

A photographer takes a one-in-a-million photo but doesn’t realize it’s special until he gets home.
There is a lot of beauty around us and wonder, and occasionally we see coincidences that seem too good to be true.
A bird murmur occurred in one instance over the Costa Brava in northeastern Spain, or a flock of birds started to amass and take on the appearance of a moving cloud. This phenomenon is spectacular, with hundreds, often thousands, of birds moving and twisting in what seems to be a single, well-coordinated organism that may quickly transform into amazing patterns.

Professional wildlife photographer Daniel Biber, a German citizen from Hilzingen, was present as the starlings started to whirl and twist, most likely as a result of the presence of a falcon, hawk, or another nearby predator. It was almost supernatural how the flock of starlings eventually twisted and turned into one giant bird in response to the predator, as though to say, “We are bigger than you,” to their tormentor.

Mr. Biber received a prize for his photographs in a worldwide photography competition, but he didn’t realize then that the images he took were so unique. I didn’t recognize what shape the starlings had made until I later saw the photos on the computer,” he told the Daily Mail. “I hadn’t recognized that the starling murmuration had produced a big bird in the sky since I had been so focused on capturing shots at the time.”
For Mr. Biber, who had previously tried and failed to capture the starlings in flight, patience paid off. He remarked, “I’ve attempted to take pictures of the starlings, but it never turned out as good as I hoped. “I ultimately took four consecutive daily trips there to photograph them. To include them in a composition, I chose a location where I anticipated they would appear and a complementary foreground and backdrop.”

Scroll down to see Mr. Biber’s stunning bird-watching photographs, and if you’re an amateur twitcher, feel free to share your bird images in the comments!
The world around us is beautiful, and we’re struck by a miraculous coincidence every once in a while.
The photographs below show exactly what happened as a flock of birds formed a shape-shifting cloud (murmuration).

The starling murmuration was finally captured after four days of effort by German photographer Daniel Biber of Hilzingen.

“I have attempted to take pictures of the starlings, but it has never turned out as well as I had hoped”

“I failed to notice that the starlings had turned the sky into a giant bird because I was so preoccupied with taking pictures at the time.”

“The birds formed that pattern in less than ten seconds.”

“I saw I had taken a special, technically flawless, high-quality snapshot.”

“Usually, when birds of prey appear, the starlings form strange shapes. It can be quite erratic and unpredictable.”

“Many people were watching this display, but they were doing so from different locations, so they might not have seen what I did.”

The pictures were entered in a global photography contest organized by the Switzerland observatory Vogelwarte Sempach.

The organizers got 6,800 photos from 540 photographers in 15 countries for their 2017 competition.



After winning the competition, Mr. Biber, a semi-professional photographer, received requests from experts who wanted to use his photos to show the difference between real and altered images. In addition, museums have invited him to present an exhibition next year.