Flock (birds)

A flock is a group of birds conducting flocking behavior in flight, or while foraging. The term is akin to the herd amongst mammals. The benefits of aggregating in flocks are varied and flocks will form explicitly for specific purposes. Flocking also has costs, particularly to socially subordinate birds, which are bullied by more dominant birds; birds may also sacrifice feeding efficiency in a flock in order to gain other benefits. The principal benefits are safety in numbers and increased foraging efficiency. Defense against predators is particularly important in closed habitats such as forests where predation is often by ambush and early warning provided by multiple eyes is important, this has led to the development of many mixed-species feeding flocks. These multi-species flocks are usually composed of small numbers of many species, increasing the benefits of numbers but also increasing potential competition for resources.

Group size is a major aspect of the social environment of gregarious animals. However, one has to be careful when using group size measures to characterize animal sociality, because average individuals live in groups larger than mean group size.

Flock!

Flock! (stylized as FLOCK!) is a puzzle video game developed by Proper Games and published by Capcom for Windows, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. It was released for Microsoft Windows on April 7, 2009 through Steam and Stardock's digital distribution service Impulse,Xbox Live Arcade on April 8, 2009 and PlayStation Network on April 9, 2009.

Gameplay

The player controls a UFO ("The Flocker") and is tasked with herding farm animals (sheep, cows, chickens, and pigs) back to the mothership, "The Mother Flocker". This is challenging due to the hazardous environments the animals exist in—the players must defend their flock against hungry predators, avoid pits of death, and send their animals flying with catapults. There are 55 single-player levels that span across three seasons: summer, autumn, and winter. There is also a cooperative play mode.

Extensibility

The game also grants access to the same map editor the developers used to make the official levels, so players can make their own puzzles. Players are able to share maps with others via a persistent map server. PC and PS3 users are able to share maps between the two platforms.

Flock (sculpture)

Michael Christian's Flock is a 42-foot sculpture made of welded steel. First seen at Burning Man in 2001, it was donated in November 2005 to the city of San Francisco by the Black Rock Arts Foundation as a temporary installation displayed until mid-February 2006.

References

Flock-1

Flock 1 is a US CubeSat satellite constellation launched on 9 January 2014. The satellite is built in 3U CubeSat bus, and each constellation consist of 28 satellites. All instruments are powered by solar cells mounted on the spacecraft body and triple-folded wings, providing approximately 20 W maximal power.

Launch

Flock 1 constellation was launched from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Launch Pad 0, US, on 9 January 2014 by a Antares 120 rocket. The satellites were deployed from ISS from 11 February, 2014 to 28 February, 2014.

Another Flock start in January 2015 on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

Mission

The satellite is intended for commercial Earth observation service. For this purpose, each satellite is equipped with a camera capable of 3-to-5-meter (9.8 to 16.4 ft) ground resolution. Details of intended service by individual satellites were never released publicly and are largely unknown.

References

External links

Bird

Birds (class Aves) are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at approximately ten thousand, with more than half of these being passerines, sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds.

The fossil record indicates that birds are the last surviving dinosaurs, having evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, and the last common ancestor is estimated to have lived about 95 million years ago. DNA-based evidence finds that birds radiated extensively around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs. Birds in South America survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world via multiple land bridges while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like "stem-birds" that lie outside class Aves proper, in the group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period. Many of these early stem-birds, such as Archaeopteryx, were not yet capable of fully powered flight, and many retained primitive characteristics like toothy jaws in place of beaks and long bony tails.

Birds (Coldplay song)

"Birds" is a song by British alternative rock band Coldplay. It was produced by the band's long time producer Rik Simpson along with Norwegian production duo Stargate. It appears as the second track on their seventh studio album A Head Full of Dreams (2015).

Music video

An official music video was also released by the band. The video was directed by Marcus Haney. It was set to the back drop of Colorado Desert's famous Salvation Mountain. The entire video was shot on a Super 8mm camera. The director wrote on Instagram: "It's a tribute of thanks to the late artist Leonard Knight for creating Salvation Mountain and bringing so much joy to everyone who's come across it."

Critical reception

Stuart Berman of Pitchfork Media called the song "a shot of taut, Phoenix-styled motorik pop that provides a rare moment of intensity on an album that’s all about arm-swaying, Super Bowl-crashing bombast".

Charts

References

External links

Birds (Marius Neset album)

Birds (released March 25, 2013 in Oslo, Norway by the label Edition Records – EDN1040) is the 4'th album of the Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset.

Critical reception

The review by Neil Spencer of the British newspaper The Guardian awarded the album 5 stars, the review by Terje Mosnes of the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet awarded the album dice 6, the review by Carl Petter Opsahk of the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang awarded the album dice 5, and the reviewer Ian Mann of the Jazz Mann awarded the album 4.5 stars

According to Mosnes, with this album, Neset takes further steps on his way to the Jazz sky. The brilliant compositions and the musical skills of this band are extraordinary. It is only to look forward to the next move of this great jazz musician and composer.

NRK Jazz critique Erling Wicklund, in his review of Neset's album Birds states:

BBC Music critique Peter Marsh, in his review of Neset's album Birds states:

Track listing

Personnel