First, flocks allow birds to draft behind one another, greatly increasing their efficiency. Following the cues of the surrounding birds, an individual moves in order to maintain a balance between distance and cohesiveness without leaving the flock.Ī bird is inclined to stay with the flock to take advantage of the many evolutionary benefits that that it provides.
In order to remain with the flock, each individual bird constantly responds to these three inclinations. Without this tendency, splinter groups of birds would constantly be breaking away. This inclination drives each individual bird to keep track of the average heading and general speed of the entire flock. The third inclination is the flocking instinct itself. The net result of these two inclinations is a continuing effort to be as close as possible to the neighboring birds without coming too close. An individual bird within a flock is always trying to move toward the average position of its fellow flyers. By doing this, the bird usually ensures that it does not collide with a fellow avian traveler.Ĭountering this tendency towards repulsion is the second key inclination – cohesion. First, a bird always tries to maintain a minimum distance between itself and every bird immediately surrounding it.
#FLOCK OF BIRDS HOW TO#
Each bird in a flock makes its own decisions about how to maneuver in flight, and these decisions are guided by three natural inclinations that all flocking birds share.
So how do they do it? And why?Ĭontrary to popular belief, birds do not simply follow the leader. It’s not because they have magical powers, although that was one suggestion made in the mid-nineteenth century. Birds wheel through the air en masse, swooping and diving as a flock but never hitting one another.