Day 13 - stay in the flock

When I am in blog-writing mode I find myself being as alert as I can be to the things that happen in my day.  Which is the whole idea really - Im trying to keep focused on what God is doing and saying throughout the lead up to Christmas and the blog is just a way of forcing me to pay a bit more attention.

The last couple of days as Ive been driving into town at a ridiculously early ( for me) hour of the morning Ive noticed a huge assembly of birds on telephone wires in one specific spot.  They are crowded onto the wires and sitting in the surrounding trees in their thousands.  After chewing on what it might all be about for a while, today I started to wonder about the word ' flock'.   I was driving again with Josh beside me and asked him to Google ' why do birds flock?'   What he read out was so...... allegorical, that I thought Id just copy and paste the whole lot here for you to read 😊🐦

Why do birds flock together?

BY HOW IT WORKS TEAM · 05/07/2015

Watching as a massive collection of birds float across the sky like an unpredictable wave, it’s difficult to comprehend how birds can fly in formation without the aid of the high- tech location equipment used by aerobatic teams like the Red Arrows.

Such patterns may look like the result of extrasensory communication, but they’re in fact the product of emergent animal group behaviour known as flocking. Every change of direction comes not as a result of an individual member of the flock, but rather of the snap decisions made by those individuals in response to the movements of their neighbours.

To comprehend how it works, in 1986 American computer programmer Craig Reynolds applied simple rules to bird behaviour to simulate flocking in his computer program Boids. The three rules he outlines include the fact that each bird steers itself to avoid crowding or bumping its neighbours (separation), each bird tries to match the average heading of its neighbours (alignment), and that each bird steers towards the average position of its neighbours, maintaining flock structure (cohesion).

1) Leader

Flying in a V formation is a good way to reduce fatigue in the members of the flock and a large or strong bird will take the lead.

2) Followers

Each bird will benefit from the updraft created by the flapping of the bird in front’s wings (which creates currents of circulating air), generating lift for the birds behind to take advantage of.

3) Replacement

When the flock changes direction, a new leader will take the helm.

4) Sick birds

A sick or wounded bird will drop out of formation and one other bird will follow it until it recovers or dies.

5) Fatigue

If the leader becomes tired it will rotate back into formation and another bird will then take the lead.

6) Resistance

If a bird falls out of formation it will notice the extra resistance and immediately get back in line.

Canadian Geese flying in a V-formation

The benefit of the flock

There are several benefits to flying as a flock. It improves a bird’s chance of survival against predators because a large group of birds is stronger and better protected and with many eyes the flock is far more likely to spot a would-be marauder. Also, the predator will find it harder to concentrate on a single victim, increasing the individual member of the flock’s chance of survival.

Flocking also enables birds to fly further using less energy because when the strong leader bird flaps its wings it creates uplift for the birds behind – each bird (except the leader) is flying in the up-wash from the wing of the bird in front. This enables the flock to use less energy and reduces fatigue.

The best time of year to witness flocking is winter as migratory birds prepare to head for warmer climes, and those that stick around for winter will be foraging and roosting together.

Sometimes geese at the back of their flock will make honking sounds to encourage the birds ahead to maintain their speed.

I hardly need to expound on the implications for the church .  Stay in the flock : you will be safer and find it easier to get where you are going.   Honk for your leaders,  stay with the sick and injured and be prepared to take your turn at leading if God calls on you to do that.    Who knew a flock of birds could be a prophetic sign?  It just goes to show God will speak through just about anything if we are listening.😀