When a large flock of birds take flight suddenly (ex. if they’re startled) how do they know where to go instead of flying off in all directions?
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Lots of birds have a very simple flight algorithm, typically ” fly parallel to one side and slightly behind the one next to you”. That’s why you get “V” shaped skeins of geese for example. So even if there is no one leader, groups keep together, wheel, merge and divide but still all roughly do the same thing.
You see crowds do this too, its a very primal animal response, that crosses species boundaries. Fish stick to the school, birds the flock and mammals the herd. Sticking together makes it very hard for a predator to focus on catching any one animal.
Fleeing from predators as a group is safer than if you break off and run on your own. On nature docs/videos predators will chase a herd but they are waiting for one young/old/sick animal to fall behind or break away from the group.
If a lot of humans start running in one direction, more humans will run that way too. Crowd crushes can happen when groups of people panic and just all run in the same direction.
So the birds are going to first, fly in a direction away from the danger, so they will go in the same general direction. Many birds “flock”, meaning the fly together as a group. After a startle they fly opposite direction from the danger and the flocking instinct (for some but not all birds) will kick in and they stay as a group. Why flock? The mass of many birds is harder for a predator to track, so as a group they have a better chance of getting away. Whereas one bird flying itself has the full, undivided attention of the predator and the predator can focus on just getting that one bird. Predators have a harder time focusing on a single individual to target when they group in a flock. The flocking makes it hard to focus on just one bird to attack, this buys the flocking birds time to get away due to the slower predator reaction. You see a similar thing in schools of fish. Same reason basically.
The software that animates enormous crowds in movies started with a simulation of birds in flight called ‘boids’
There are lots of comments here but the honest truth is we don’t really know. Same thing with fish, it is one thing scientist are still trying to get a conclusive answer on.
Most of the answers here are not really supported by anything more than an educated guess.
It is all established that most of not all animals have senses that we do not have and some we even have trouble understanding our even believing in.
Science is just now starting to understand how birds fly south in winter! Little, tiny lensatic compasses? Nope. Some scientists in England are studying the magnetic sensory ability of birds. This allows them to know which direction is which.
Think of your dog, and how the hell does he know 5 monies ahead of time that someone will be walking down your road? Frankly, I’m thinking Animals can communicate telepathically. There is no rigid science that says no, that’s not possible.
It’s not smell. My dog is in the house. Not his sharp heating. Same reason. I’ll stick with Abimal ESP.
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