After a disappointing world cup final and 3 hr of sleep the previous night, I slept peacefully last night for 8 hours. The morning ritual these days is checking mails immediately after gaining some consciousness, today learned a new word first thing in the morning – Murmuration. I thought that was a made up word given as title to newsletters these days. Finally asked Google and watched some incredible videos of nature’s ballet in Youtube (nature’s dance and man’s music). Got hooked and continued watching and reading on these birds. Some interesting things about this phenomena
– This is often reaction to presence of a predator like Hawk or Falcon. Threat can be a great motivator.
– Research says it is called “scale-free correlation”.
“The change in the behavioral state of one animal affects and is affected by that of all other animals in the group, no matter how large the group is. Scale-free correlations provide each animal with an effective perception range much larger than the direct inter individual interaction range, thus enhancing global response to perturbations. Our results suggest that flocks behave as critical systems, poised to respond maximally to environmental perturbations.”
I wonder if this is similar to something going viral – positive or negative. Like spreading ideas – like Modi effect sweeping India or the Arab Spring – perception change getting more range through social media.
– Each bird is reacting to the birds nearest to it – it seems one bird’s movement only affects its nearest seven neighbors.
"Interacting with six or seven neighbors optimizes the balance between group cohesiveness and individual effort".
Interesting way in which one change affects the others closest to it.
– “Starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.”
Tipping point, critical transition – is the iron hot enough? J
– “Surprising as it may be, flocks of birds are never led by a single individual. Even in the case of flocks of geese, which appear to have a leader, the movement of the flock is actually governed collectively by all of the flock members. But the remarkable thing about starling flocks is their fluidity of motion. As the researchers put it, “the group respond[s] as one” and “cannot be divided into independent subparts.”
Interesting to note that there is no leader who initiates the change in direction.
– “When one starling changes direction or speed, each of the other birds in the flock responds to the change, and they do so nearly simultaneously regardless of the size of the flock. In essence, information moves across the flock very quickly and with nearly no degradation. The researchers describe it as a high signal-to-noise ratio.
– This scale-free correlation allows starlings to greatly enhance what the researchers call “effective perceptive range,” which is another way of saying that a starling on one side of the flock can respond to what others are sensing all the way across the flock—a huge benefit for a starling trying to avoid a falcon.”
So one condition of bringing about a murmuration is to reduce signal to noise ratio. How do we play “pass the message” without completely losing it?
Good links:-
