Definition of "murmuration"

"Oh! I wasted most of my morning crawling to a murmuration of starlings, which I foolishly mistook for congregation of plover."

1893 September 27, The Bazaar, the Exchange and Mart, London, page 800, column 3

The same dynamics can be seen in starlings: On clear winter evenings, murmurations of the tiny blackish birds gather in Rome’s sunset skies, wheeling about like rustling cloth.

2013 March 19, Ed Yong, “How the Science of Swarms Can Help Us Fight Cancer and Predict the Future”, in Wired‎

Professor Anne Goodenough, an applied ecologist at the University of Gloucestershire who led the research, said: ‘It appears murmuration has become the norm – a general way for the starlings to stay safe from predators.’

2017 July 29, “Solved, the riddle of starlings' aerial ballet: Birds use acrobatics to ward off creatures of prey”, in Daily Mail‎