This page is about the movement of birds in action, with as main actions: flight, take off and landing. The video below shows several different birds in action, first in full speed, then slowed down so you can analyse the action better. Especially for birds this footage was very useful as they are so damn fast! The footage was shot in different places in Bristol, and the last shots were shot in Noah's Ark Zoo farm just outside of Bristol.
A duck taking off and landing
The landings and take offs of Birds (and ducks) were especially interesting to study and analyse as they are actions that normally take place so fast that we can hardly see what's going on. I could not wait to look back at the footage I had shot frame by frame and slowed down, to see what I had actually caught on camera.
The sequence of frames at the left shows the take off of a bird. These were the actual frames, so in 7 frames of 25 in a second the duck had gone from sitting to be flying in the air. We see how first the wings are spread out while the duck is moving up straight and then swished downwards very quickly to move the duck into the air. The flapping of the wings goes really quick at this point to make up a lot of movement in the air. Once the duck is flying less wing movement is needed, and bigger movement would actually decrease the speed of the duck, which we can see in the example of it landing in the water below.
In the video footage on top of this page we can see that the duck before it's landing shown below was flying a long way with almost no wing movement. This made him go down gradually, but still moving forward. In order to move down faster the duck is moving it's body from a horizontal to a more vertical position. This is followed by fast flapping of the wings, but now being in a vertical position other then where it was taking off to fly away, now it will help the duck to decrease in speed very quickly. When he has lost enough speed he places its feet in the water, allowing him to loose even more speed and he can move back horizontally again. Once his wings are fold back on his back again he can continue swimming. There still is a lot of speed/forward momentum left so the duck makes a fast slide through the water, though is slowed down soon enough by the resistance of the water.
(Click on the image below for a larger view)
Below is an owl landing (sequence from high to low, from left to right). This was shot during a birds show in Noah's Ark Zoo farm, ideal for this research as it was all about making the birds take off and land from some wooden poles! We can see here how the owl first moves his feet forwards, coming in a very vertical position, just like when the duck was preparing to land in the water. Only now there is no water so the owl has to reach for the pole, though still keep his balance. We can see that he is making its balance by keeping his head and upper body bended forward for a long time, untill the last moment where he actually needs to stretch his feet as far as possible to reach for the pole. It is clear that this position is in no way a balanced position in which the owl could stand for a long time, so he has to move his body forward again and uses his wings to help making this mocement. Once he is leaning forward again he can move his wings back again, and once he has found his balance entirely he can fold them in and sit straight up again, or continue doing whatever he had planned to. (in this case eating the treat that was layed down on the pole, or finding that there was nothing this time and waiting there untill he is called to the next one where he will be rewarded again with some food) The video footage of the owl can be found at the end of the video on top of this page.
Below are some further study of bird movement. A look at the skeleton of a bird to understand better how it's movement works and some drawings from observation of the video footage. The drawings on the top page were the only ones I drew by watching footage I didn't shoot myself, but used highspeed camera slow motion footage of birds movement shot by Chris Webster. The drawings on the bottom page are some different flight cycles from footage I shot myself.
Finally I have taken some of the footage of the owl flying and made that into a little animation. Of course I couldn't just start with a simple fly cycle but had to try a complicated take off, fly with turn, from the distance to the foreground with a nice landing at the end. I just 'copied' every still frame by drawing those by observation. I would maybe have been better to start with a simple bird just getting the construction right first, but I think this was useful as well. And it was fun.