Ducks make flying look like hard work and other bike commute ponderings.

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I think they float better than most raptors though.

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My bird one was watching a goose land in a field of sheep. Sheep are a lot bigger than a goose, and there were a lot of them. How do they know sheep don't eat geese? I can't imagine them landing in one of those dog play fields full of sheep size dogs 

Today I was contemplating the body/wing size ratio of the common Mallard. When compared to a nice gliding or hovering bird of prey flight style for example, they do make getting and staying aloft look like bloody hard work, flapping like mad without any opportunity for rest. 

The fastest flying bird in the uk is a duck.

It might looks hard work but they're bloody good at it.

Most birds make taking off out ow water pretty difficult.

My bird one was watching a goose land in a field of sheep. Sheep are a lot bigger than a goose, and there were a lot of them. How do they know sheep don't eat geese? I can't imagine them landing in one of those dog play fields full of sheep size dogs 

That's a doozie. What happens if the dogs dress as sheep or vice versa? It's the obvious follow up question. 

The fastest flying bird in the uk is a duck.

I thought Peregrines were the fastest bird full stop, or does plummeting not really count as flying. Interesting fact nonetheless

I read somewhere that flying (especially getting off the ground in the first place) takes a huge amount of energy, which is why a lot of birds seem to spend a lot of their time walking (or swimming) around instead

So if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a tired duck that just CBA to fly? 

I've always liked ducks.

My bird one was watching a goose land in a field of sheep. Sheep are a lot bigger than a goose, and there were a lot of them. How do they know sheep don't eat geese?

The same way that you know that sheep don't eat geese? I'd expect that your average goose has spent more time around sheep than your average human has.

I thought Peregrines were the fastest bird full stop, or does plummeting not really count as flying. Interesting fact nonetheless

Thats a stoop.

I justvfact checked and it might not be the fact thought it was.

But an eider duck is rapid. Like 60 to 70 miles an hour fast. 

Most ducks are pretty rapid though if you get the flying past you close enough its quite obvious they know what they are doing re getting where they are going.

Epic landings too.

Posted by: andrewh

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I can't imagine them landing in one of those dog play fields full of sheep size dogs 

I'd put my money on the goose coming out on top tbh

• Epic landings too.

Another one which was bothering me, and you've just reminded me of.

Birds landing on the ground and aeroplanes landing on runways, erm, land on them. Birds and seaplanes landing on water or aeroplanes landing on carriers still land on them even though it's clearly not land. What's going on there? Surely a duck lands on the ground or waters on a pond?

Posted by: andrewh

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Birds and seaplanes landing on water or aeroplanes landing on carriers still land on them even though it's clearly not land.

Also, how do (eg) pigeons know NOT to land on water and ducks know that it's fine. Does a pigeon ever look at a duck and think "oh I could do that too!" followed moments later by "****'s sake, what now?!"

Painted circles marking where to make road repairs - some look like there is an animal homicide investigation squad and it was where they drew an outline around the dead hedgehog.

Pheasants are really stupid birds. Rather than sit safely in the middle of the bushes they are hidden in, they decide to squawk repeatedly very loudly and then reveal themselves by running straight into the path of whatever caused them to squawk in the first place. 

When this happens while I’m on my bike I often wonder if they are in fact the stupidest bird there is…

Pheasants and hedgehogs have evolved very different strategies to avoid their predators. Unfortunately  to avoid human ones (****ers with shotguns and cars respectively) they need each other's methods.

When this happens while I’m on my bike I often wonder if they are in fact the stupidest bird there is…

Sir hasn't met a peacock before has sir.

Ah yes, forgot about peacocks - clearly related to pheasant. 

Puffins make getting off the water look very hard indeed. Its a good reason to give the loads of space when kayaking or paddle boarding.

Ah yes, forgot about peacocks - clearly related to pheasant.

The only known defence tactic deployed by a peacock is big piles of shit.

Posted by: oceanskipper

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Ah yes, forgot about peacocks - clearly related to pheasant. 

I think they are the same "family"  - Birdus Stupidus. House in our village has peacocks. Well, they are usually walking in the road at the busy main road crossroads rather than at the house....

Always funny when new residents in the village find a peacock in their garden and panic on Spotted FB.

Ducks are amazing and funny to watch. Keen rapists so I've heard!

Posted by: Bruce

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Puffins make getting off the water look very hard indeed. Its a good reason to give the loads of space when kayaking or paddle boarding.

Now puffins make flying look properly hard work - but they seem reasonably technically skilled once up to optimum cruising altitude (say around 20”)

Watch a wedge tailed eagle taking off. It's looks like it has a 50:50 chance of making it.

When this happens while I’m on my bike I often wonder if they are in fact the stupidest bird there is…

 

Sir hasn't met a peacock before has sir.

Or a Guinea Fowl.  Body the size of a basketball, head and brain the size of a marble. Daft as **** but allegedly rather tasty, in the sense of 'after an hour in the oven'

Watch a wedge tailed eagle taking off. It's looks like it has a 50:50 chance of making it.

Similar odds to me sending it.

The fastest flying bird in the uk is a duck.

Not even close, They're fast fo'shure, but peregrines stoop at over 150mph, Gannets hit the water doing about 65mph, Swifts, Martins and swallows are all faster than mallards, again clocked at 60-70, not native but there's a lone Albatross who's made the uk it's home, and they can get to 70-80 using waves as ground effect 

They are either gliding or stooping.

Winged flight ie pumping of the wings. I didn't claim mallards where. I claimed eiders were and they are right up there with swifts.

• That aside i already acknowledged that fact was dubious.

In a post-truth world all facts are dubious.

Seagulls. I often think about seagulls. They clearly have the ability to pull off some serious aerobatics but they never bother. If I was a seagull, then I'd perfect my loops, inverted flight and proper stall-turns. I'd fly along next to a crowded ferry, do my routine then wait for my thrilled audience to chuck me some tasty scraps of food. I'd still nick the occasional ice-cream off a toddler, and mug granny for her pasty, but mostly I'd be wowing folk with my amazing aerobatic skills.  

If I was a seagull, then I'd perfect my loops, inverted flight and proper stall-turns

Calm yourself Jonathan.

they do make getting and staying aloft look like bloody hard work, flapping like mad without any opportunity for rest. 

TBH your usual easyJet has to give it a bit of welly to get off the ground

Thanks @integra and @thelawman for being as cultured as I.

Funniest (bird-related) thing I've ever seen was geese and swans landing on a frozen lake.

Gliding down... feet out ready for graceful landing... hits the ice and "wump" onto its arse and slides the length of the lake  

Even better when this happened again but it fell through the thin ice at the end of the slide, then the next one came sliding along and smashed into the first, still floundering in the water  

Posted by: sirromj

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The only known defence tactic deployed by a peacock is big piles of shit.

 

See also: penguins.  You see them on TV and think "aw, how cute" but they're waddling shitting machines.  They're ankle-deep in guano (though granted, 'penguin ankles' is a low bar) and given that their diet is solely fish the stench is indescribable.  'orrible bastards, penguins.

Posted by: stanley

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Seagulls. I often think about seagulls. They clearly have the ability to pull off some serious aerobatics but they never bother.

They make up for it in accuracy, they're basically air-to-surface missiles.

One time, I spotted a ne'r-do-well hanging about outside my house.  Hoodie up in July when it's pushing 30', that sort of thing.  He sat down on the kerb in front of my window and I'm thinking "what's this scrote up to?"

Then I realised, he's been to the chippie round the corner and has parked his arse to eat out of a tray.  Fair do's.  Just as I'm chastising myself for being judgemental this f'n massive seagull comes screaming in Stage Left at like Mach 2.  Smashes into his lunch, he leaps up in shock, chips flying everywhere and the gull is away in a flurry of feathers with his fish.

Shouldn't laugh at others' misfortune but I'm still giggling now typing this.

Thanks @integra and @thelawman for being as cultured as I.

You're welcome, although I'll freely admit my version of 'culture' in this instance is mainly from the lyrics of the 1975 Barclay James Harvest track Jonathan. Have read the Wiki synopsis of the book this morning  and your reference makes perfect sense.

Saw some mallards in formation in West Sussex yesterday and overheard their quacking

Mallard 1 to Mallard 2....

"See that fat f*** on the bike down there.... He's making it look like hard work....."

Very rude I thought, but not wrong

Posted by: Josh

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The fastest flying bird in the uk is a duck.

I think you might want to check that statement, because my understanding is that peregrine falcons are the fastest birds of all at roughly 200mph in a dive, and they regularly hunt ducks and snipe, which are also very fast fliers. Merlins hunt dragonflies, and they’re even more difficult, because they can fly backwards.

Oh, and ravens do aerobatics, just for the shits’n’giggles of flying, there’s no other reason for them to do it, when they mate for life, and I’ve watched a solo bird doing a display when there’s been no others about.  They’re perfectly happy sliding down a snow covered roof repeatedly, like they’re tobogganing!

Smart birds, ravens, worlds biggest songbird too.

I think you might want to check that statement, because my understanding is that peregrine falcons are the fastest birds of all at roughly 200mph in a dive, and they regularly hunt ducks and snipe, which are also very fast fliers.

I think you might want to read the rest of the thread.

Posted by: countzero

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Smart birds, ravens, worlds biggest songbird too.

"Songbird" is pushing it a bit  

Crows play like this as well. I sometimes see them when it's very windy, flying into the wind, getting pushed backwards, flying forwards again, getting pushed backwards (upside down), and repeat... seemingly just for the fun of it. A joy to watch.

And speaking of gulls, they are some of my favourite birds. Amazing to watch, absolute masters of the air, not like they're heaving themselves through it like a duck or a magpie. Lifting effortlessly in and out of the water, none of this splashing along needing a runway like the A380. Another enduring memory is sitting having a rest at the top of Snowdon in thick fog and absolute silence, with a seagull hovering motionless beside us in the cloud.

absolute masters of the air,

Any of the woodland birds - and the birds that prey on them are often some of the most manoeuvrable, including the humble pigeon. Proper low aspect ratio wings that can beat asymmetrically with body movement control to initiate turns tight enough that even F22 would be hard pressed to match. 

Back on the OP.

I know it might look hard work but the wing s are pretty small and low drag. Lot's of frantic flapping verses one alight flap of a holden eagle.

Bet i know which one is actually easier.

Re woodland birds, watching a sparrowhawk fly through a tree is something to behold.

also (to mess with your head on a boring Monday workday) The idea of feathers to sustain flight is one of the weirder evolutionary jumps. And if all the birds died out, probably not one that would ever be repeated given the evidence of the amount of times skin gets used (multiple times) vs feathers (just the once, and after the "event" that killed off everything else) if you want to ponder something on your ride, then that: The utter unlikelihood of feathered flight 

Posted by: ossify

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"Songbird" is pushing it a bit

Ravens belong to the family of birds called Passerines, which is the family that contains all of the songbirds: so, they are songbirds. Bloody great big ones. I have various feathers I’ve collected, including a raven primary wingtip feather; it’s 320mm long from the end of the quill, a carrion crow feather is 265mm.

They are very vocal, although it has to be said you nearly always just hear them cronking.

Magnificent birds, sadly, there’s a dead one on the Wansdyke in a nature reserve near Calne, I’ve salvaged one wing, for the feathers, I’ve put the rest under a blackthorn bush covered over, to let natural processes take their course so I can retrieve the skull later. They have a big skull, with a very big and powerful beak.

Posted by: Josh

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alight flap of a holden eagle.

One of Australia's most underrated flying cars

Ravens and crows are really clever, they might be the smartest non primates in the animal kingdom.

Its obvious from how they take the piss out of my Cocker Spaniel that they are much smarter than a dog (well my dog anyway).

We had a little hanging bird feeder in the garden, it was too big for a crow to perch on, so one of the crows just figured it out if it lifted it off the bracket it would spill out all the seed and it could have as much as it wanted.  I added a cable tie so if it lifted it off it would still hang from the cable tie and not fall to the ground.  The crow just figured out it if it moved the cable tie first it would get its reward. 

Clever bastards!

I had a magpie land on my arm as a young DoD was surprised how heavy these things are, as well as how rough they look close up.

Funniest (bird-related) thing I've ever seen was geese and swans landing on a frozen lake.

Gliding down... feet out ready for graceful landing... hits the ice and "wump" onto its arse and slides the length

I never really got swans and flying ,I’d not like to be underneath one when it arsed up.

Ravens belong to the family of birds called Passerines, which is the family that contains all of the songbirds: so, they are songbirds

The defining characteristic of passerines is that they perch, not that they're songbirds necessarily. It's like saying that 'Rodents' contains mice, thus Capybaras are big mice... 

The defining characteristic of passerines is that they perch, not that they're songbirds necessarily. 

Um. Is that correct i thought perching birds were passerforme. Of which passerines are a sub group which sing?

I often wonder why birds hang out where they do. Like a pigeon living under a damp railway bridge in Aberdeen, in winter. Now, I quite like Aberdeen but if I had the option of flying to a nice medieval hill town in Umbria or Tuscany, I'd be there like a shot. Nice weather, nice views, nice bins of Italian food waste, Italian birds....Yet old Aberdeen pigeon just toughs it out. Serious lack of ambition.

Posted by: franksinatra

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Serious lack of ambition.

Or rightly terrified of his Aberdonian missus if he tried to escape.