Like many flying critters, geese migrate thousands of miles twice a year to make sure they never have to cope with the frigid challenges of winter. Geese, however, do not depend on a queen or any other individual member of the flock to ensure reproduction from generation to generation or survival from migration to migration. Instead, they have developed a strategy of collaboration whereby the stronger help the weaker and the adults take turns leading the flock on its northerly or southerly journey. The most distinctive and easily recognized goose behavior is the practice of flying in a V formation, which is an expression of aerodynamic engineering at its best. That formation generates the same kind of drafting process that bicycle racers, distance runners, and truckers in a convoy use to reduce the energy needed by everyone other than the leader. The goose at the head of the V is actually working several times harder than any of the other geese, so the flock agrees to rotate the leadership role as needed. The goose strategy for long-haul migration is rather democratic compared to the aristocratic strategy represented by a “queen” whose legitimacy in the role is dictated essentially by her genetic inheritance.

Goose behavior also expresses several other interesting features. “Pecking order” refers to the practice of allowing the largest and strongest offspring to eat first, thus ensuring what evolutionary theory calls the “survival of the fittest.” This practice is acceptable to all the offspring as long as the food supply is plentiful, but not when famine sets in. During migration, if one member of the flock suffers an injury or is otherwise handicapped, one other member of the flock is recruited to stay with the suffering member on the ground until the emergency passes or the suffering member dies. In the aftermath, the surviving goose or both geese hitch a ride with another passing flock, since all the migrating flocks are headed in the same direction. Finally, communication behavior helps to guide and structure interaction among the geese. The habit of loud honking during migration, for example, is apparently intended to encourage and inspire the goose at the front of the V, who is doing way more work than the rest of the flock. As with the queen bee, whose life is full of repetition and boredom, the leader of a goose migration pays a heavy price for being the leader.

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