~View from my Window by Mary Weaver
We have survived through January and February and thankfully now March is with us, coming in as a lamb. So, it may mean going out as a lion. The girls’ basketball tournament almost always brings us a winter storm, so it is not the time to put away those snow boots.
With fondness I recall Miss Wilson, my first grade teacher having a large bulletin board calendar for March including a lamb and a lion.
March 1 often meant new students in our classrooms as tenant farmers moved physical locations to form a contractual relationship with their new landowners. This frequently resulted in new neighbors for those of us who lived in the country.
Other indicators of March this week included a former nursing school colleague making a video including audio of geese honking on her nearby pond. I can also report two robins in my yard last week. I am concerned about the asparagus poking through the soil, in that it got nipped by the snowstorm last week.
I learned a new word this week that involves spring: MURMURATIONS. That is the descriptor for the swarming and flying of starlings and some other birds, insects, and fish. Its name comes from the distinctive sound produced by the numerous wings of starlings as they fly together. It is always so mesmerizing to watch the appearance of a black cloud, but knowing it is a swarm of birds, swooping, swaying, and turning, without running into each other.
Thousands of starlings in a murmuration together are for one reason: safety. The sheer volume of birds confuses predators like eagles or owls and makes it much harder for them to attack and capture individual birds. The characteristic shapes of a murmuration come from the rapid changes in direction. I was surprised to learn a murmuration can move fast, as starlings may fly up to 50 miles per hour.
Mathematicians and computer scientists have tried to create virtual murmuration using rules that birds might follow in a flock
–Separation: Avoid colliding with nearby birds.
–Alignment: Match the direction and speed of neighboring birds.
-Cohesion: Stay close to the center of the flock.
By following these simple rules, each bird contributes to the overall pattern of the murmuration. Even slight changes in direction or speed by one bird can ripple through the flock, creating the dynamic and ever-changing shapes that are so captivating.
From these simulations, it seems that each bird must keep track of seven neighbors and adjust based on what they’re doing to keep the murmuration from falling apart in a chaotic mess. Maybe in this chaotic time in our country we can take a lesson from birds forming a murmuration, staying close, avoiding collisions, while moving forward together.
