Right- and Left-Handed Birds Help Their Flocks Fly Better

As they scrub the smeared ink from their wrists yet again, left-handed people must sometimes wonder what the point of all this is. Why do we have a dominant hand, anyway? However arbitrary it seems, we're not alone in favoring one side over the other—there are all kinds of animals with a preferred paw, claw, or swimming direction. Now flying birds have flapped into the club. In at least one species, birds tend to veer one direction over the other when faced with an obstacle. More than just a pointless impediment to scissors use, "handedness" in birds might keep their flocks flying. The birds in question are budgerigars, or budgies. Better known to Americans as ordinary pet parakeets, in Australia these birds travel the desert and scrubland in dense flocks. University of Queensland neuroscientist Mandyam Srinivasan says that flying this way without crashing isn't a trivial task. "Whilst landing on ...