Photos shared to social media claim to depict a swarm of starlings flying through the air often, incredibly, in the shape of a bird. One such photograph, for example, was shared on Reddit in 2019 ...

(See bird pictures.) In 2009, Hawkes and an international team of researchers tagged 25 bar-headed geese in India with GPS transmitters. ... Birds' Bodies Built for High Flying.

These beautiful photos and the competition are particularly poignant now as experts report that half the world’s bird species are in decline, with more than one in eight at risk of extinction.