As Richard Dawkins explains in his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, the starlings’ remarkable aerobatic ballet results from each bird within the flock following a relatively simple set of rules. The birds’ wonderfully complex flight patterns emerge from the cumulative, simple actions of the individual birds, in a similar way to water’s wetness and turbulence emerging from the relatively simple interactions of individual water particles.

In my opinion, the fact that such complex behaviour can emerge from simple sets of rules does nothing to detract from the displays; indeed, if anything, I would say that it adds to the Wow! Factor.