Secrets of shorebirds

[Paul Hamilton]

One of the things many species of birds do to become less vulnerable to peregrines is to fly in tight formations.  Amazingly, the whole formation seems to turn all at once.  Evidently, the wave of movement travels from bird to bird in 17 milliseconds, twice as fast as the reaction time of a sandpiper, which is 38 milliseconds.  How do they do it?  Nobody knows Lots of interesting Red Knot information, too.

Paul

[dale]

Thanks, Paul. Although 17 milliseconds is a bit much for me to imagine...yikes.

One of the most astounding things one can see is a tight formation of flying birds. Pigeons, of course, practice in the city on a regular basis; at some points of a turn they all disappear into dots, then finish the curve and get reconstituted into pigeons.