11 Feb 21 At least for now this will be the last of the geese in flight images. As I was working up the set of images for today, one of the creative ones made me stop and think about the issue of how the geese are able to fly in such tight formations without ever colliding. Perhaps maybe better said as I've never seen a collision but I've seen a lot of these formations and so far no one has collided with another. The image that got my attention was one that had lines outlining a small space around each bird. It's a bit of a stretch perhaps but when I saw that I immediately thought of the vortices that are created off aircraft wings as well as those behind from the entire craft. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the birds create these types of vortices, obviously MUCH smaller than those of an aircraft, but there just the same. Now all that would be needed is for a sensor in the head of the bird that measures these and allows for the birds to keep a space between them. If some of the geese family members, Canada Geese for example, can extract oxygen at both sea level and at heights of 25K feet, a feat that seems impossible when you think about humans, then I don't see why others might not be able to measure the pressure changes caused by a vortex. I don't have the lab I would need to prove this hypothesis, but I do think it one worth pursuing, a task I would really enjoy. With that behind us here is a shot of the birds making a move from point to point much like you see when a raptor passes overhead. Only difference is that when the entire flock does it the birds are considerably more densely packed.
This is what the camera saw. In Their Individual Space Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/640 sec @ f /11.