The Flight of the Sanderlings

The small Sanderling will fly in flocks together as one, like a swarm of bees, this is at the Mouth of the Copalis River, Ocean City Beach, Washington ~ The Olympic Rain Forest

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Pets & Animals

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• Flocks of Sanderlings

[GRGannie]

I have seen our nieghbor the Peregrine Falcon chasing them over the Ocean... And when he gets one all you see is a poof of feathers... Amazing!

[floydstinkyboy]

...any individual can initiate a flock movement, which then propagates through the flock in a wave radiating out from the initiation site. These "maneuver waves" could move in any direction through the flock, including from back to front. However, the flock usually only responded to birds that banked into the flock, rather than away from it. Since birds turning away from the flock run the risk of being separated from it and getting picked off by the predator, others will not follow them.

[floydstinkyboy]

"Such movements are a prime example of emergent behavior: the behavior is not a property of any individual bird, but rather emerges as a property of the group itself. There is no leader, no overall control; instead the flock's movements are determined by the moment-by-moment decisions of individual birds, following simple rules in response to interactions with their neighbors in the flock." from a striaghtdope d0t c0m article on bird "manouver coordination"