when starlings are all flying how do they all manage to keep together?

Question

when starlings ie birds are all in the sky,how do they all know which way to fly,because they all swoop together?

Answer 1

wish i knew. starlings come here by the thousands in the fall, and are in very large flocks. noisy, too. it seems when the first bird takes flight, the others naturally follow. maybe they have some sort of signal for the rest of the flock. just a guess.

Answer 2

It all comes down to reaction time. They have an ability to react that is incomprehensible to humans. You'll notice that in small flocks they all seam to move in complete unison, whereas in the largest flocks, you can see a slight delay between the birds in the front and the birds in the back. They all are just keeping track of the birds around them.

They all have genuine Pentium processors in their heads.