A while back, while waiting for a ferry crossing to Galveston, I watched the seagulls riding the wind. They seemed masters of the air. They could head slightly into the wind and "hover" in mid-air waiting for a morsel of bread, then with a tilt of a wing, shoot across the sky like a jet.
Amazing bird.
Then I heard a squabble off to one side. Several of the gulls were fighting over a small piece of bread that had landed at the edge of the water. The noise, and feathers, and noise, and pecking, and noise, and splashing, and noise ... all over a small piece of bread. I remembered a story I had read once. It seems a scientist tied a red ribbon around the foot of a gull to see how the other birds would react. They pecked the poor bird to death, before it could be rescued, because it had something that they didn't. ...sheeesh!
On the other hand...
Geese are amazing flight artists as well. The familiar "V" formation is a means to reduce the effort of flying into the wind. The lead bird will fight the wind while the others "draft" him like stock cars. When the leader begins to tire, another will take his place as he drops back in the flock. This method enables them to fly nearly twice as far as they could otherwise. I've heard that some ornithologists think that the honking you hear as they fly over is really "cheerleading" for the flock, keeping everybody pumped up for the trip.
To insure this method can be utilized, they never fly alone. If one lags behind for some reason another bird will stay so that they may share the work of leading.
Neat bird...
Which kind of bird are you? ... at home? ... at work? ... at church?
