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One moderately windy day when cycling, I encountered a bird that I concluded was practising precision soaring and simply enjoying itself. It was constantly adju
by chrismorgan 5y ago
One moderately windy day when cycling, I encountered a bird that I concluded was practising precision soaring and simply enjoying itself. It was constantly adjusting its posture as necessary so that it could hover roughly in-place, with just the occasional flap needed. Then after maybe a minute it’d abruptly change position by a few metres in any direction, and start hovering again. I watched it for more than five minutes before it flew away.
I also remember another time watching a sparrow land on a wire fence backwards in a fairly strong wind: it flew with the wind towards the fence, then turned around in mid-air a metre or two before it reached the fence, was blown the rest of the way and landed neatly.
- Swenrekcah 5y agoYour story reminds me of this video of a snowboarding crow: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA
- yellowapple 5y agoThanks; that sent me on yet another YouTube rabbit hole around crows and their zany behavior.
- quercusa 5y agoMature red-tailed hawks can hover or soar with only the slightest movements but the juveniles are comically bad at it.
- MikeDelta 5y agoI sometimes forget that also animals need to practice in order to become good at something.
- ajuc 5y agoI've seen crows do that near a corner house with L-shaped roof. The wind was going from the backyard, hitting the sloped roof and blowing straight up in that corner and a lot of crows were jumping from the roof, hovering on the wind for a few minutes and returning to the roof when they couldn't keep in the stream.
- adflux 5y agoPlenty of birds of prey do this before going in for the dive