Eli5: Why do birds fly in V’s?
In: 3
It takes energy to fly through the air as your body needs to push away the air that’s in front of it. The air that gets pushed away forms a wake behind out of “easy to move through air”. In the case of migrating birds the lead bird is doing a lot of work pushing away the air, the birds to his/her left and right have a much easier time flying. The birds will trade on and off lead bird position as they travel.
In this manner the total energy required per bird to migrate is substantially less than a lone bird just going the journey alone.
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