That flock of pigeons flying overhead may look like a chaotic cloud of birds, but it's more like an airborne hierarchy. When Pigeons Flock, Who's in Command? The researchers think this relates to the structure of the birds' brains, in which the left side handles spatial tasks and the right side governs social recognition. She says the team next plans to study flock members in greater depth, including their genders, ages, navigational experiences, to determine "what airborne leaders are made of.". A team lead by statistical physicist Tamás Vicsek of Eötvös University in Hungary outfitted a trained flock of 13 homing pigeons with tiny GPS receivers that could determine each individual bird's position every 0.2 seconds. Vote Now! kit. To find some of the answers, researchers exploited a bit of 21st century technology. The researchers tracked each bird's directional changes and how often those changes either followed or were copied by its flockmates. Therefore, anything the birds see with their left eye (which is processed by the right side of the brain) tends to yield a quicker social response. A selection: I love how some of these terms bring up images of, say, owls crowding into a chamber in Westminster or herons taking up arms against a castle. Advertising Notice Different birds have different collective nouns to describe large groups, and while many of the terms are obsolete, seldom used, or just plain silly, they are still familiar to birders. Used in a sentence, you could say "Look at the flight of pigeons", where "flight" is the collective noun that means group. "The degree of coordination that flocks achieve is really impressive," Biro says. Flocks of birds are one of the most common sights in everyday life, but many aspects of the animals' behavior remain poorly understood. Give a Gift. Generic collective nouns such as “flock fleet,” or “dissimulation” can apply to all bird species; however, there are more distinctive terms used for groups of specific types of birds that often are a reflection of the bird’s personality and/or behavior. But the flock's leadership can change so that even low-ranking birds sometimes get a chance to command. Can't find what you're looking for? We have identified the following word(s) that you could call a group of pigeons: flight. a head of pheasants. Sandpipers: fling. Others elicit thoughts of sound (starlings) or the bad tidings they are supposed to bring (ravens). 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And lacking any threat or sudden disturbance, why do flocks on the ground spontaneously take to the air? The book is full of examples of how birds can be found in art and language, but what particularly intrigued me was a list, in the introduction, of the various names for groups of specific birds. Rooks: building, parliament. Then they sent as many as 10 members of the flock out on 15 test flights. California Do Not Sell My Info Starlings: chattering, cloud, congregation, murmuration, clattering. Below is a 3 column fast-sorting table of collective nouns with a related noun and link to the main category. Privacy Statement All rights Reserved. Another curiosity was that the lower-ranking birds most often flew behind and to the right of the leaders. What would you call a flock of flamingos, a swarm of swallows, or a group of eagles? By Phil Berardelli Apr. However, the data also revealed that the leaders weren't always the same, even within a single flight. The journeys included four flights of about 15 kilometers back to the birds' roost and 11 flights roaming freely around their home base outside Budapest. Terms of Use © 2020 American Association for the Advancement of Science. a herd of cranes, curlew or wrens. She is a contributing writer in science for Smithsonian.com and blogs at Wild Things, which appears on Science News. In today's issue of Nature, the team reports that the flight patterns showed a definite hierarchy, with most or all of the birds consistently copying changes in direction by the flock's leaders, which almost always flew in front. a muster … The findings could help explain group behavior of other animals, such as schooling fish, says evolutionary biologist Iain Couzin of Princeton University. Sarah Zielinski is an award-winning science writer and editor. And this sophisticated study reveals the link between the birds' brain hemispheres and how they gather information during their flights. The fast search works for all the columns. And sometimes, even the birds at the bottom of the pecking order would lead the flock for brief periods. It's possible that this type of group decision-making is more accurate or beneficial than others, says zoologist and co-author Dora Biro of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Recently, while perusing the shelves of my bird-crazy colleague Laura, I came across "Winged Wonders: A Celebration of Birds in Human History," by Peter Watkins and Jonathan Stockland. Many flock names are descriptive not only of the group of birds but also of their behavior or personalities. Or are there any great ones I missed? It achieves "a deeper understanding of coordinated control in animal groups," he says. flock. Smithsonian Institution. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER. Snipes: walk, whisp. Quails: bevy, covey, drift. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. Continue Birders who underst… Cookie Policy 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. 8, 2010 , 5:20 PM That flock of pigeons flying overhead may look like a chaotic cloud of birds… As you can see, you simply substitute the word "group" with one of the collective nouns on our list above when describing a group of pigeons. a murmuration of starlings. Why, for example, do flocks suddenly change directions and then change directions again within a few seconds? Why do birds in flight suddenly stop to rest on a certain stretch of telephone wire? The arrangement made each flight more egalitarian, but the researchers think the reason might be more evolutionarily than politically driven. If, for example, a leading bird suddenly swerved to the right, its followers copied its move within about 0.4 seconds—an amount of time considered too long to be reflexive. Pigeons: kit. or "We identified a clear hierarchical structure within the decision-making process." Ravens: congress, unkindness. Some terms that were listed as commonly used were "herd", "flock", "school", and "swarm". The findings could shed light on how other groups of animals behave en masse, such as herds of wildebeest, schools of fish, and even crowds of humans. 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