Huge flock of birds from video by Phil Eaton

You have to see and hear this incredible footage of a huge flock of birds!

Phil Eaton, from Armadillo Aerospace located in Rockwall, Texas, captured the amazing footage. Phil describes the experience:

The disadvantage of having an office with a window overlooking the runway is that events such as this turn out to be rather distracting.

Finally I succumb to the need to pull out Matt’s camera and commence recording some of the amazing sound and imagery we experienced on a completely windless day.

Yep, I would definitely be distracted! I don’t think I would get anything done. To give you an idea of just how many birds there were, Phil goes on to say:

We suppose there were up to three or four acres of ground covered with birds at any one time.

At certain points in the video, you really feel like you’re right in the middle of the huge flock. You can even hear the wind created by the birds. Phil says:

It was a windless day but the birds flying past the hangar door caused a rather large rush of air.

Definitely one of the best videos of a flock of birds I’ve seen in awhile! Great job Phil!

In an email he sent me, Phil talks about what he discovered in one of the videos:

When reviewing the video in high definition I saw a much larger form moving very fast at one side of the flock.  That ended up being a hawk of some sort that managed a catch of one of the smaller birds in mid air.

He created a short clip to show the predator hunting in the flock. Wow!

The birds were filmed at Armadillo Aerospace in Texas. Armadillo Aerospace develops reusable rocket powered vehicles. Founded in 2000, they completed over 200 flight tests spread over a dozen different vehicles. They’ve also done work for NASA and the United States Air Force.

Earlier this year, Space Adventures partnered with Armadillo Aerospace to provide commercial flights to suborbital space! Here’s a video explaining the commercial suborbital space flight program. Awesome! Sign me up, I want to go!