Why do geese always fly in a V? And how do they figure out which goose will be the one in front? –Khia Willis, Baltimore
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Other people have different ideas. One school of thought holds that geese fly in a V for aerodynamic reasons–each bird flies in the slipstream of the one in front of it, like race car drivers, in order to conserve energy. Thus far, however, this hypothesis has eluded laboratory confirmation. “While it is possible to train single birds to fly in a wind tunnel, no one has attempted to persuade a flock of birds to do so,” one goose researcher notes sadly.
Others suggest that geese fly in a V because it helps them stay together: they can keep an eye on the bird to starboard while having an unobstructed view dead ahead. The fact that most geese have high-visibility tail markings tends to confirm this. But skeptics, most of them no doubt PO’ed aerodynamics partisans, argue that geese actually keep together by honking to one another during flight. Also, the flock maintains the V pattern after dark, which detracts some from the visual-contact notion.
This whole thing is so ironic it’s an instant cure for pernicious anemia. “Indian” was once used by the white man as an all-purpose adjective signifying “bogus” or “false,” owing to the supposedly low morals of the red man. Thus you had “Indian summer,” false summer late in the year; “Indian corn” and “Indian tea,” cheap substitutes for products the original colonists had known back in England; and “Indian giver,” someone who gives you something and then takes it back. But of course the truth is that it was the Europeans who were the real Indian givers, repeatedly promising the Indians reservations by treaty and then stealing them back once valuable farmland or minerals were found. The term has thus inadvertently become an acid commentary on the character of its inventors. I think it’s poetic.
