• Dunlins are sandpiper-type shorebirds that flock together. When flying, they coordinate their movements with precision, moving together in a single instant. Using high-tech photography, their movements were slowed down so researchers could understand how the flocks managed to move as one.
• Analysis showed that the movement was not simultaneous, but instead started from an individual bird, or a few birds together. The initial movement could originate anywhere within the flock, radiating outward in rapid waves. Researchers found that the movement took an average of 15 milliseconds to move from one bird to the next.
• In the lab, researchers tested captive dunlins to find out how quickly they responded to a sudden stimulus. The average startle time in reaction to a loud noise or a flash of light was 38 milliseconds, much longer than it takes to respond when they are surrounded by a flock.
• A boy adopted a lost homing pigeon. The pigeon was identified with a band on its leg with the number 167 engraved on it. Then the boy grew ill and went to the hospital 70 miles away (113 km) where he had an operation and a lengthy stay. One night a week into his stay, he heard a fluttering at his window and recognized his bird. A nurse opened the window, and the pigeon flew in, identified by the band on its leg.
• One day at school, a magpie flew in an open window and perched on the shoulder of a boy in a classroom of about 40 students. “It’s our summer bird!” the boy exclaimed, explaining that they had rescued and raised a fledgling magpie that summer at their cottage some 50 miles (80 km) away. They had left it behind when they returned to the city, never expecting it to be able to track them down in town, much less in the middle of a school day. His teacher dismissed him for the day so he could take the bird home.
• A large population of starlings hang out in the Baltic region of northern Europe all summer, migrating to Britain for the winter. Researchers caught around 11,000 starlings when they were in the middle of their migration in autumn, capturing them mid-route in Holland. They were banded, and then separated into two groups.
• One group consisted of just the adults; the other group was only juveniles. Usually flocks are made up of both adults and juveniles, so the youngsters can get the hang of the migration route. 11,000 birds were flown nearly 400 miles (643 km) off course, and released in Switzerland. First the adults were released, and then the juveniles. Would the two groups be able to find their way?
• The adults adjusted their course and ended up where they intended to go in Britain, northwest of Switzerland. But the juveniles, which had been flying in a southwesterly direction when they were waylaid, continued in a southwesterly direction and ended up in Spain instead of Britain. When the juveniles returned to the Baltic region the next spring, the researchers wondered if they would follow the adults to the normal wintering grounds in Britain at the end of the summer. Surprisingly, many of the youngsters broke with tradition and returned to where they had been in Spain.
• Austrian sculptor Heinz Peteri lived in a small room in the tower of the police administration building in Germany. He noted that a group of pigeons that lived in the eaves of the roofs across the street would always leave their roosts exactly 30 minutes before a British bombing raid came in. He used this knowledge to warn his comrades. His predictions were so accurate that the Gestapo arrested him, suspecting him of communicating with the enemy, when all he was doing was observing the pigeons.