A New York drone photographer filmed thousands of rays gliding along the coast in one of nature’s most striking seasonal displays.
Every so often, the ocean puts on a show that stops people in their tracks. This week it happened off the coast of Long Island, where a drone photographer captured footage of an enormous fever of stingrays gliding through the shallows during their annual migration. Seen from above, the rays move as one dark, shifting mass, like a living carpet unrolling just beneath the surface.
The clip, shared by ABC, quickly caught attention online, and it is easy to see why. There is something mesmerising about the sight of so many creatures moving in perfect unison, their wing-like fins rippling in synchronised waves as they travel along the coast.
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW!
What Is a Fever of Stingrays?
That word, fever, is not a mistake. A large group of stingrays swimming together is genuinely called a fever, one of those wonderfully specific collective nouns the animal kingdom is full of. And these gatherings are no small affair.
The rays most often behind these coastal spectacles are cownose rays, a migratory species found along the western Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico. They are strong, graceful swimmers with a distinctive indented, cow-like snout that gives them their name, and a wingspan that can reach around three feet. When they gather to migrate, they do so in staggering numbers. Fevers can run into the thousands, and in some populations the schools have been estimated at as many as 10,000 individuals moving together.
From the air, the effect is unforgettable. Observers often describe the rays as looking like golden-brown diamonds, or a brown blanket sliding across the water, packed so densely they seem to replace the sea itself. They swim in a smooth, coordinated formation, which is exactly what makes drone footage of them so hypnotic to watch.
Why Stingrays Migrate in Huge Groups
So why do they bother travelling together in such vast crowds? The answer comes down to two things, temperature and timing.
Cownose rays follow the seasons. As waters warm in late spring, they move north along the coastline in search of feeding grounds and comfortable temperatures. When the autumn chill arrives, they turn around and head back toward the warmth of the south. A long-running tagging study led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center found that rays along the Atlantic spend their winters near Cape Canaveral in Florida, and likely return to the same summer spots year after year, a homing instinct scientists call philopatry.
Breeding is woven into the journey too. The rays gather in shallow waters through the warmer months to mate and give birth to live young, known as pups. Travelling in a large group offers safety in numbers across long stretches of open water, which is part of why these migrations become such massive, synchronised events. Interestingly, the exact triggers that set a fever in motion are still not fully understood. Videographers who film them each year note that the rays tend to collect at the same location for a few days, and once the group reaches a certain size, the whole fever moves off together to begin the migration.
It is worth remembering that despite their calm appearance, stingrays are still wild creatures and best admired from a distance. They are not aggressive and pose little threat when left alone, but like all rays they carry a barbed tail they can use if they feel cornered, so the smart approach is to watch and enjoy rather than get too close.
Cownose ray populations have faced pressure in parts of their range, which makes footage like this a nice reminder of just how spectacular a healthy migration can look. As drones become a more common sight over coastal waters, moments like the one filmed off Long Island are reaching far bigger audiences than ever before, giving people a rare bird’s-eye view of a natural event that has been playing out along these shores for longer than anyone can remember.
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