[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TAS BirdBoard ] [ FAQ ]
Posted by Paul-the-other on 17:59:48 09/01/06
In Reply to: Re: Nighthawks and swallows posted by Alex Harper
1. I watched a bluejay trying to crack a peanut miss the peanut and stab its foot. It dropped the peanut, screamed as only a jay can, and jumped a foot into the air and then flew to the ground and hopped around in real pain.
2. This week I watched two grackles get rolled by the winds and end upside down. They went into a flat spin and recovered just before hitting the ground. They should never have attempted flight.
3. Three months past I watched a cormorant attempting to land in an Australian pine. It missed the branch completely and crashed into about 6 other cormorants on the next branch. All seven had to launch flight and circle again for setup for a new perch for the evening.
4. When I was a young man, such as you, I watched coots (and the numbers were many) in the pond at Royal Palm scatter in the typical feet splatter run-flight they have. One bumped another throwing it off course slightly. As it tried to recover flight it lost speed sunk in elevation and was snapped up by what was an alligator and not a "log".
5. Back in the big freeze of, what 1954?, mockingbirds came to land at our frozen birdbath and slid right on their rumps. They steadied themselves and looked real long and hard at the ice covered bath.
6. In Yellowstone this last Spring I watched mallards come to land at Flat Creek, overshoot or perhaps came in "hot" as the piots would say. Whatever, they hit flipped and went about 5 feet upside down.
My field experience is that birds are not exempted from making bad judgement calls. I have seen about 5 collisions between birds and small airplanes. You should see what a duck does to a Cessna windshield. For that matter, a black vulture.
Collision being one of them. Now with fast action digital cameras maybe someone will catch one such collision. Given enough birds in a tight area in a feeding frenzy or maybe mass migration explosion into flight from a lake it seems very plausible that mid-air collisions are not only pssible but probably every day events somewhere.
[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TAS BirdBoard ] [ FAQ ]