Scantlings

This is pretty wild. I'm amazed swallows aren't falling out of the sky like shot-down planes.

https://vimeo.com/31158841

I watched that video. Amazing.
Back when I was 21 years old I lived on a houseboat almost under the Aurora bridge over Lake Union.
I would watch the starlings do that same kind of thing but to a much smaller scale.
When I watch that vid I get the feeling that someone is giving flying orders to the flock, "Ok, fly 20 seconds that way then turn around and slpit into two groups and fly in opposite directions. That should look good on the video."

Who does air-traffic-control for those flyers??? How amazing that they aren't bumping into each other. Imagine if folks tried to drive cars (or airplanes) the way these birds fly??!???

I've seen that happen a couple of times. The sound of all those wings beating was actually painful.

I wonder if the Blue Angels and other formation pilots get envious when they see something like that.

Cool behavior, but just imagine that many rats and the destruction this filthy and voracious exotic wreaks. Fuck Eugene Schieffelin.

Lot of research on how many instructions it takes to fly in a flock. Swarming behavior is all the rage for autonomous robots.

Cool to watch. Very similar to schools of fish. Is it anti predator behaviour as it is with fish?

I would love to see and hear an exaltation of larks.


Unless kdh and his prog-rock friends have eaten all their tongues in aspic.

Ish wrote:I would love to see and hear an exaltation of larks.


Unless kdh and his prog-rock friends have eaten all their tongues in aspic.

Who you calling aspic? No racial slurs here, remember?

I feel sorry for that one Starling who gets airsick

We humans have been slowly learning how air and water respond to movement with eddies and such, but we have so far to go. Animals are way ahead of us. Just the other day I read an explanation of why geese fly in chevrons that the geese are well aware of, and we have admitted that bumblebees really fly, and that birds have a lot more feathers than they need to fly and a lot more nerve endings in their wings as well. My guess is that the communication is in the air as much as visual.

Fantastic to see.

Long ago.... when I was a little kid....

Me: "Dad, I wish I could fly like those birds!!"
Dad: "We all wish that, but we do other things they can't do."

Me: "They can swoop and hover and dive and it is so GREAT!! I wish I could fly!!!" (wistfully)
Dad: "You know what a little bird says to his Dad?"
Me: "Huh, no."
Dad: "I wish I could walk and run and skip and ride a bike and ski and ice skate and sail and surf and swim..."
Me: "Dad!! You know what I mean."

Dad: "Well, you tell me what you're willing to give up to be able to fly."
Me: "I'd give up a lot! Flying would be great."

Dad: "Would you give up running?"
Me: "Sure, I could just fly to where I wanted to go."
Dad: "Would you give up swimming?"
Me: "Sure, I don't really like to swim that much. You just made me learn how so I could sail."
Dad: "Would you give up sailing?
Me: "I don't know.... maybe"
Dad: "Would you give up being hugged by your Mom? Birds don't have arms, they can't hug."
Me: after a long pause, "Sure, big kids don't get hugs."
Dad: "Are you sure? I like hugs."
Me: "Well, maybe Mom could have arms and I'd have wings."

Dad: "Nope, you take your pick. Be a bird or be a boy, you can't be both."
Me: "I want to be a boy who can fly, like superman!"
Dad: "Nope, superman is made up, you get to choose. What'll it be, I can go to the lab and get you changed."
Me: worried now "Really?"
Dad: "No, I'm just kidding you, but what do you REALLY want?"
Me: "Hugs and other stuff like that."

Dad: "OK, come here and get one."

I'd forgotten that exchange until this thread. While I'd love to be a bird, to feel what they feel about flying in flocks. They are amazing the way they sense the air the way they do. It would be awfully difficult to give up hugs.

BV