Can anyone derive a function that best determines the bird-spacing for flocks of birds sitting on over-head telephone lines?
The spacing seems amazingly uniform and must be determined by each individual birds "personal space"; or are other factors at play here?
- wingspan?
- Some sort of fluid dynamics anomaly that occurs as air flows between each bird?
- the frequency (Hz) of the current traveling through the wires?
The next time you are traveling and see a multitude of birds sitting on the lines, notice how far apart they are and consider why.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
After observing a group of pidgeons today during lunch, I am leaning towards "personal space" as the answer. As each bird landed and adjusted their position, the other birds constantly did the sideways shuffle to keep their imaginary property boundaries. This will require more research.
perplexing and worth pondering, indeed.
After attending the guided nature hike over the weekend, I learned something that may not answer your question, but is related.
When birds eat the seed cones of cedar trees, their partial digestion of the cones and evenual "release" through the digestive tract causes the seeds to grow faster when they fall to the ground.
You may notice that there are sometimes a straight row of young cedars growing under telephone wires. This explains the reseeding of cedars along a telephone wire.
Something else to think about!
Post a Comment