No, these are not Starling Murmuration. They are mosquitoes, millions of them that descended upon the Russian village of Mikoltsy near Myadel, Belarus, in the Minsk region on May 14. The mosquitoes were so loud that even cars could not be heard. Photographer Dennis Sour who managed to capture this unusual phenomenon said that although the swarm looked threatening, they didn’t bite. Such activity of mosquitoes is probably caused by the weather.

According to Tatiana Zhukova, director of the Naroch Biological Station, this is a natural process. The lake is home to mosquito larvae. When the larvae grow into adult they leave the water and come to land, where they mate and lay eggs. Large clouds of mosquitoes gather every year but they are usually not noticed because the windy weather blows away the mosquitoes. But on quiet and sunny days, like that on Monday, they become more than apparent.

Weather is known to cause weird behavior among animals and insects. Last year in Pakistan, rising flood waters drove millions of spiders up into the trees where they wove webs completely cocooning the trees.

Sources: 1, 2