Bird's wings set up a swirl in the air behind them.  By flying in
formation, following birds place themselves in the part of the swirl
that generates the most lift and/or tailwind so that they spend the
least possible amount of energy flying.  Since this spot is determined
by the physics of air, various species should fly in similar formations.
 So it is not too surprising that a species like Great Blue Heron, which
doesn't often fly in groups, flies in formation when for some reason
they do form a flying group.

Ole Buck wrote:

>I think I'll run down to the quickie-mart and play 3's on a scratchoff or something... I had the same experience as Joe yesterday at the lake at St Mary's River with 3 GBHE flying in that staggered formation. And believe it or not I had a group of 3 down at Point Lookout a day or two prior as well. I thought it was odd behavior for GBHE at the time, I'd never seen it before in any case. Nice to know the birds are acting normal and that I'm the odd one in this scenario.
>
>Chris.
>
>"J. Steven Huy" <> wrote:
>Joe,
>
>I've seen it a few times while watching migrating hawks. The most memorable was right about this time several years ago. There were five or six herons travelling together. They reached a thermal and went into a perfect circle, beak to toes, and rode it up as high as they could, then peeled off and went on their way, again in formation.
>
>============================================================
>From: Joe McDaniel
>Date: 2004/04/16 Fri PM 02:34:31 EDT
>To: 
>Subject: [MDOSPREY] Great Blue Herons in formation?
>
>I don't see a lot of Great Blue Herons in Frederick County, but there were three flying in formation (not enough for a "V" but staggered just like three Canadas might fly) transiting from west to east this morning. I thought this very unusual as I have never seen a group of herons flying together so purposfully (obviously going somewhere).
>
>Best,
>
>Joe McDaniel
>Monrovia, MD
>
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>
>J. Steven Huy
>Middletown, MD, USA
>
>www.ProjectOwlnet.org
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--
Maurice Barnhill
  [Use ReplyTo, not From]
[bellatlantic.net is reserved for spam only]
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716

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