![]() But it may also have practical applications too, like helping develop autonomous vehicles that can travel in tight formation and work in coordinated groups without colliding. ![]() Curiosity drives this research, of course. All these synchronized movements can happen so fast within flocks, herds, swarms and schools that some scientists once thought it required animal ESP!īiologists, mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists and engineers are all working to figure out how animals carry out these displays. Large schools of fish can appear to behave like murmurations, as do groups of some swarming insects, including honeybees. And they do all this while flying as fast as they can. From these simulations, it seems that each bird must keep track of seven neighbors and adjust based on what they’re doing to keep the murmuration from falling apart in a chaotic mess. ![]() Mathematicians and computer scientists try to create virtual murmurations using rules that birds might follow in a flock – like moving in the same direction as their neighbor, staying close and not colliding. Starlings on the edge frequently move deeper into the flock. Starlings are closer to their side neighbors than those in front or behind. The videos reveal that the birds are not as densely packed as they might appear from the ground there is room to maneuver. Within the murmuration, individual birds aren’t tightly packed together. Then they use computer programs to track the movements of individual starlings and create 3D models of the flock. To learn what’s happening inside murmurations, some researchers film them using many cameras at the same time. ![]() Somehow they keep track of how the flock is moving as a whole and adjust accordingly. Birds in the middle can see through the flock on all sides to its edge and beyond. Instead, scientists believe movements are coordinated by starlings observing what others around them are doing. Murmurations have no leader and follow no plan. How do starlings coordinate their behavior? That observation suggests that murmurations do form to help protect the birds from predators – but it’s also possible a huge murmuration would be what attracted a hawk, for instance, in the first place. A third of them saw a raptor attack the murmuration. Over 3,000 citizen scientist volunteers reported spotting murmurations in a recent study. It also must be careful not to collide with the flock and get hurt. A falcon or hawk can get confused and distracted by tricky wave patterns in the murmuration’s movements. ‘Murmuration’ by Sophie Windsor Clive & Liberty Smith.Īnd a gigantic mass of whirling, swirling birds can make it hard to focus on a single target. This special kind of flock is named for the sound of a low murmur it makes from thousands of wingbeats and soft flight calls. The European or common starling, like many birds, forms groups called flocks when foraging for food or migrating. A murmuration can move fast – starlings fly up to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour). They look like swirling blobs, making teardrops, figure eights, columns and other shapes. Murmurations constantly change direction, flying up a few hundred meters, then zooming down to almost crash to the ground. The flock splits apart and fuses together again. As many as 750,000 birds join together in flight. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to do flocks of birds swoop and swirl together in the sky? – Artie W., age 9, Astoria, New YorkĪ shape-shifting flock of thousands of starlings, called a murmuration, is amazing to see. Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages.
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