BIRDS : FLIGHT on Yahoo! Kids

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Birds

How Does a Bird Fly?

Just like an airplane’s wing, a bird’s wing
is curved from front to back in a shape scientists call an airfoil. As the bird’s wing flaps, air flows faster over the upward-curved top than it does across the bottom. Fast-moving air has less pressure than slow-moving air, so there is more pressure pushing up on the wing than there is pushing down, creating what scientists call lift. Lift is what gets a bird (or an airplane) into the air and helps keep it there.

How a Wing Works
Curved upper surface (airfoil).

Airflow is slower over the lower surface, increasing upward pressure.

Flight School
A baby bird leaving the nest knows instinctively how to flap its wings. But it takes time for a young bird to become good at flying—time to practice and time for muscles to strengthen.

Four Ways to Fly

Female Mallard in gliding flight. © Kenneth H. Thomas - Photo Researchers, Inc.

Gliding
To glide, a bird stretches its wings out and sails along without flapping, dropping slowly toward the ground. Watch a goose or duck dropping down into a pond— that’s a glide.

Blue-throated Hummingbird © Anthony Mercieca - Photo Researchers, Inc.

Hovering
The best hoverers, hummingbirds, can stop in midair, flapping their wings over 50 times a second. Hummingbirds can also fly backward on purpose. No other birds can.

Red-tailed Hawk © R. Van Nostrand - Photo Researchers, Inc.

Soaring
Soaring is like gliding, but a bird finds warm, rising air to carry it upward. Hawks, eagles, and vultures are all excellent soarers; so are storks, cranes, and many other large birds.

Flapping
This is the most common kind of flight, but it uses a lot of energy. Most really fast birds use flapping flight.

The Fastest Fliers
Most songbirds can fly about 20 to 30 miles per hour, but Common Eiders can fly nearly 50 miles per hour, and Dunlins (shorebirds) once caught up with and passed a plane flying 100 miles per hour. Peregrine Falcons are considered the fastest birds. Experts think they may reach 200 miles per hour in dives.

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