The knowledge

Heaven only knows that my relationship with my Mother was fractured at best.  But she did leave me with a couple of lovely legacies.  One is cooking and the other is a love of birds.

This is one of "my " magpies.  I call her Little Missus, the other female is Big Missus and the Male is - guess what?  Mr.   Not only do they have face recognition, they also have voice recognition.  I can stand out the back and bellow "MAGGIES" at the top of my voice, and in they fly.  They are a very long lived bird.  I reckon I've been feeding my Mr. for very many years, possibly even as long as 15 years.  The two Missuses are younger.

When I worked in the city, it was very clear to me that the birds followed the streets as they flew around.  But what I want to know is how do birds communicate in mid-flight. 

I was watching a flock of Rainbow Lorikeets - maybe about 10-15 of them.  And as most Australians would know, they fly very fast.  Anyway this one flock was zooming around, and they reared up as one, and just about came to a dead stop before right-wheeling and flying off in a different direction.  The thing is, how did they know?  How did they avoid mid-air collisions.  Does the leader tweet: 'right turn at the second dead leaf on the left"?

Oh, how I wish I understood more.