Heck, like a kid with spinach and cake I couldn't wait untill Saturday and so I hurried through the Inglenook neighborhood this afternoon spying on the blackbirds in order to expose the modus operandi of their hitherto secret cult.
And here is the skinny...
Blackbirds vote with their stomachs.
Winter feeding flocks reach an optimum size by simple accretion. That is to say that the larger the feeding flock the more efficient the collective eating machine is in ravaging the countryside and protecting its members from predation.
This communist structure is self rejuvenating; the specialization of individual birds is temporal and does not require a "pecking order" in order to effect roles that require the individual to forgo feeding.
In a nutshell, the strong and well fed bird operates from a innate biological imperative to watch for danger while the others feed.
It follows that within the larger flocks there are more sentinels availabe who are willing to watch from the tops of tall trees and then to fly to other nearby feeding grounds after a suitable time has passed.
The direction of the movement of the flock is controlled by a visual "critical mass" mechanism that dictates that flock movemnt is always towards an accretionary population of the future.
And then the gang breaks up in the Spring and they become husbands.
Last edited by themilum; 03/25/06 01:59 AM.
