Quite a few geese are flying over me each day now. I've convinced myself they are saying to each other "left..left..OK straight...right a bit...OK". I'm a amazed at how precise they can be (an sometimes not) like they all stop flapping at once and glide then flap again. There were at least 24 to 40 geese all acting in perfect harmony.
I remember seeing a video from the 80s about how the behavior is emergent - they made a computer program that replicated how birds fly by stating just a few axioms like don't fall behind and don't be in front.
The idea being that the V takes shape because they want to have a bird in front of them the entire time while one poor bird gets stuck out in front.
Boids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boids
They take turns! Easily explainable in mechanical terms —lead bird is tired, slows down, another bird overtakes, and the v formation algorithm kicks in again.
But it could be more than that. Maybe the lead bird vocalizes or signals that they want to swap out, and some type of social status determines the order, with disputes resolved by wing flap aggression. Or maybe not.
If, as Jane’s Addiction and many sf authors have imagined, we’re being kept as pets by aliens, much of our behavior would look rules-based, unthinking and reactive.
>The idea being that the V takes shape because they want to have a bird in front of them the entire time while one poor bird gets stuck out in front.
I imagine they take turns like bicyclists do, right?
Ever seen a starling murmuration?
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(11)01315...
https://bioone.org/journals/northwestern-naturalist/volume-1...
These are happening this time of the year where I live. I like to go out at sunset to watch them dance. It's amazing how they coordinate so well at such close quarters, looks like a single organism from afar.
You think it needs a lot of coordination to fly in sync? I only have a slow clap for you, actually everybody else join in for the clapping and without any coordination whatsoever you'll notice that we clap in sync after a just 50 seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au5tGPPcPus
This slow clap thing is a tradition to ask for an encore/bis/repeat at concerts. So I wouldn't be so quick at stating that this is an emergent phenomenon.
But maybe this has become the tradition because when you clap for a long time it would slowly synchronize.
In the video it is quite clear a few people are seeding the synchronisation.
Just don’t clap on the 1 and 3, please. Lots of videos of musicians attempting to get the crowd to clap on the 2 and 4…but the audience has a mind of its own.
Also the changing of the point goose one guy takes over the lead falls to the back and one of the two of the V behind the main goose takes over.
And they never shut up, plus they are so loud. They're talking about something.