Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 18:34:08 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Betty Conley Subject: Re: flocking MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 02/18/2000 4:09:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, rweiner@GWIS2.CIRC.GWU.EDU writes: << I would be grateful for a reference/citation regarding the benefits of flocking, particularly for ease of predator detection. this is for a research article on investors, regarding when they all tend to move in the same direction, currently termed "herding." I'm hoping to sneak the term "flocking" into the scholarly finance literature! >> Below are some appropriate quotes, from Seminars in Bird Biology, Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University, copyright 1972, revision 1987, Seminar VII, Social Behavior, p. 204 "Birds in flocks usually do things together. They feed together, rest at the same time, fly off in a body, and react to preditors as a unit. In some cases we find actual ":copying" behavior among flocking birds........................... Because a flock has more eyes and ears than one individual, it provides two main advantages: spotting preditors and finding food. A bird in a flock is less likely to be surprised and captured by a hawk than when it is alone. And a bird in a flock is less likely to overlook food than when it forages alone." Betty Conley Long Island, NY and Colesville, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================