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From: sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: What are these birds doing and why?
Message-ID: <1662@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 90 23:08:22 GMT
References: <4514@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM==
Sender: news@sun13.scri.fsu.edu
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
Lines: 34

In article <4514@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM== dmunroe@copper.WR.TEK.COM (David Munroe) writes:
==
==The setting: Portland Oregon, early October, about 7pm, in a large weeded
==field (several acres) near a suburban shopping center.  I noticed about 50
==to 75 sparrowlike birds, probably larger and darker, clustered together and
==flying in large clockwise circles about 75 feet above the ground.  Sometimes
==a few birds would break away, but they'd eventually come back.  Sometimes
==several different groups of circling birds would join into one large group.
==What puzzled me is that they kept this up for over half an hour (I had to
==leave).  
==
Those were starlings on their roosting flight. Starlings (and various
blackbirds) gather in large, sometimes enormous, flocks and circle around
in the manner you describe before going to roost (sleep) in the weeds.

==Also there is a stream, a pond, and some ducks here.  The ducks are very
==elegant in flight except, in my opinion, they beat their wings too fast.
==When they come in for a landing (on the pond) they seem to botch the landings:
==their wings are stretched out straight, tilt way over one way, then the other
==way, break quickly, and plop down in the water.  Is this typical of duck
==landings or do they just have problems zeroing in on small ponds?
==
Ducks (and other waterfowl like geese) have a problem in losing altitude when
coming in to land. They could circle round until they finally hit ground,
but they often expedite the process by breaking left/right which causes
them to lose altitude real fast.

You say you don't know about birds but you are a very good observer.
There are many birders that could identify those birds but have never
bothered to see how they behave.

Daan Sandee                                           sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052  (904) 644-7045