Mehran Banaei
Many of us are often late when commuting between home and work. The usual reason is multiple accidents on the highway. Despite improved highway designs and advanced automobile sensor systems with automatic emergency braking and blind-spot warning system, deadly accidents still occur regularly. Cars moving bumper to bumper may collide and pileup while attempting to change lanes for no reason other than the driver being distracted for a fraction of a second, for poor judgment or for lack of having sufficient driving skills to handle a vehicle in distress.
Moreover, it is not just on highways, when it comes to speed, maneuverability, control and synchronization, Man certainly has some clear limitations.
Even walking slowly could lead to a catastrophe if the participating crowd of people is too dense. For instance, year after year, so many pilgrims are crushed to death in the Hajj stampede as chaos breaks out.
However, flocks of hundreds of thousands of tiny dunlins, sandpipers and starlings can put up an amazing aerial parade, travelling with a speed relatively faster than cars on the highway. With an astonishing degree of coordination, none would ever bump into one another. The same artistic communal pattern can also be seen among some ocean fish. The whole flock appears to be thinking collectively. They twist, turn and suddenly change direction in a split second without notice. It is indeed breathtaking to witness one of nature’s most mesmerizing and poetic displays by a beautiful miniature species, and not to be amazed. The sound of starling murmurations is just as mesmerizing as the sight of it. The two go incredibly well together. The performance is indeed poetry in motion.
Man pride himself in his abilities and developed technology. Yet our competence and know-how are mediocre compared to this tiny bird. We still have not fully understood why do they do it, let alone how do they do it. One dominant theory is that murmurations offer safety in high numbers; protecting them from predators like peregrine falcons that are attracted by the sheer number of starlings. That may be so, but they are seen to murmur in stunning formations even when there are no predators in sight.
With the computer-generated simulation of a flock of birds, scientists are trying to learn more about the mechanism of synchronization and flight patterns. Much is still a mystery about murmurations just like countless other things in nature. However, we know one thing for sure, while man engages in a deadly dance of speed, starlings enjoy their spectacles dance of life.
Such superb choreographic abilities performed by small birds and fish surely deserve to boisterously proclaim: “Glory be to Natural Selection”. The almighty blind Natural Selection, which out of nowhere, for no reason, with no foresight has created the most dazzling show in nature, just for the heck of it.
Mehran Banaei 