The bird ballet (flocking) is a great metaphor for our own “real life emergent behaviour” – what might be possible if we all start communicating properly and making the right connections. Thanks to @jyri (Google’s Jyri Engestrom) on Twitter for the idea!
Looking at these starlings reminds me of Arie de Geus’ book, The Living Company. Arie talked about birds using flocking as a way of passing on information to each other: bird species that flocked, such as starlings, had advantages over the ones that didn’t, like robins.
Scientists observed how, in the midst of winter when lakes and even rivers might be iced over, starlings Blue Tits had taught each other to peck open the lids of milk bottles on peoples’ doorsteps – the solitary robins didn’t appear to have this knowledge.
I’m fairly sure it was blue tits not starlings, Jemima. But I agree that flocking is a really important way of seeing organisational behaviour:Allan Wilson says accelerated evolution takes place intragenerationally in certain species when three characteristics are present: * Innovation – the capacity to invent new behaviour * Social propagation – the capacity to transmit skills through direct communication rather than genetically * Mobility – the capacity to move around as individuals, to come together into flocks, and to move as a flock.Craig Reynolds, thinking about the steering behaviours of a boid (a computer simulation of a single flocking creature),concluded that three factors are at play: * Separation: steer to avoid crowding local flockmates * Alignment: steer towards the average heading of local flockmates * Cohesion: steer to move toward the average position of local flockmates