Birds have it all over airplanes when it comes to formation flying.  Even the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels could tke a lesson from birds because birds never seem to make mistakes or collide.

1 - Pelicans fly in very close formations.  I call this one 'Me and my wingman.'

2 - American Avocets fly in a rather loose formation.

3 - An American Widgeon 4-ship.

4 - Northern Pintails fly a rather loose formation.

5-  Sandhill Cranes in the familiar V formation.  I snapped this one morning when we were counting Sandhill Cranes.  We got to our posts before sunup because the cranes started leaving the refuge to feed in the fields around Roswell.  In this instance the sun had just peeked over the mountains to the east and the orange reflected off the birds' left sides as the were overhead flying South.

6 - A White-faced Ibis 5-ship.

7 - A 3-ship Snow Goose formation just taking off.

8 - A 6-ship Snow Geese formation.

9 - A 2-ship Canada Goose formation.

10 - A 5-shp male Mallard formation climbing out at sunset.  I call this one 'Boy's night out.'

11 - And last ordered chaos.  It was early on a morning Sandhill Crane count when I noticed a black cloud moving down the valley.  It kept changing shape.  It was a thousand or more blackbirds.  The picture is just a small part of the formation.  It's amazing how they climb and dip and turn almost in unison without colliding with each other.  I wonder if there is some sort of communication going on here or if they just do what the birds near them are doing in sort of a chain reaction.

Noel

I don't know what happened to the last three pictures.  Here they are.

Fake! Those are not real "birds".  😀😉

Nice shots man, i love those birds too.