Post by pieter on Jan 20, 2018 9:26:28 GMT -7
For my father a group of wild geeze who fly over in their V formation is the ultimate symbol of freedom. All my life I saw the exitement on the face of my father when he heard and saw the wild geeze formations fly over our home, or during walks and cycle tours through the Walcheren Peninsula in Zeeland. I inherited this positive habit and have the same feeling when the Wild Geeze fly in their large V formations over my home in Arnhem in the Province of Gelderland in Middle-Eastern Netherlands. I remember when my father read the child Nils Holgersson (called The Wonderful Adventures of Nils in the english edition) of the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf to us. He always ended the story with: "And then a elephant with a large trunk blew the story out". I was alayws sorry, because I was curious how the story would end, but had to be patient until the next evening. We didn't had I-pads, I-phones, laptops, children tv or other modern equipment to entertain children back then.
We have hundreds of thousands or millions of Wild Geeze over here. They fly from North to South over the Netherlands. But some of them stayed in the Netherlands and formed colonies in some part of the Netherlands, like on the river shores of the Rhine river in Arnhem.
V-formation
A V formation (sometimes called a skein) is the symmetric V-shaped flight formation of flights of geese, ducks, and other migratory birds. V formations also improve the fuel efficiency of aircraft and are used on military flight missions.
Aerodynamics
The V formation possibly improves the efficiency of flying birds, particularly over long migratory routes. All the birds except the first fly in the upwash from one of the wingtip vortices of the bird ahead. The upwash assists each bird in supporting its own weight in flight, in the same way a glider can climb or maintain height indefinitely in rising air. According to a 1970 paper, in a V formation of 25 members, each bird can achieve a reduction of induced drag and as a result increase their range by 71%. The birds flying at the tips and at the front are rotated in a timely cyclical fashion to spread flight fatigue equally among the flock members. Canada geese are a common example demonstrating the V formation.
Two Canada geese during their landing on the water