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Pastimes : Things That Amuse Me -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nittany Lion who wrote (917)	12/10/2000 10:35:58 AM
From: PMS Witch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12669

I don't know about mourning dove mating habits. I had a spruce tree behind my house which would fill to capacity with these birds. Some days, there were more birds than branches. They never 'did' anything beyond sit still and make noise. I did notice that they prefer to eat on the ground. Cheers, PW. P.S. I read about a guy who studied flocks and swarms. His theory was that the size of the critter determined wether they moved in chaos or in some coordinated pattern. He claimed that if their size was smaller than a hummingbird, they would travel randomly. We see this in a swarm of bugs: They form a 'cloud' with individuals very loosely connected to the overall group. As size increases, so does the orderliness. We see this in flocks of birds and schools of fish. They seem to all move in the same direction at the same time. How each knows what to do and when is beyond me. What was fascinating about this guy's study was that hummingbirds have been observed engaging in both behaviours. Ever wonder how people find these jobs? Couldn't think of a better way to earn a living. At parties, when people ask what you do, you say "I direct traffic for hummingbirds", and then watch them nod knowingly before getting away as quickly as possible. P.P.S. If dogs could fly? I wonder about this. Would they fly together, since they are social animals, and tend to follow the leader, as they do on the ground? Or would they fly in what appears a random pattern as, like on the ground, they follow what their nose tells them could lead to something interesting? If this is the case, they'd become visible clues to the movement of air currents near the ground, like clouds are further up.