Sometimes I’m blown away by the fact that birds are sentient aircraft. When I overhear people complaining about how there are too many pigeons or seagulls around, I think about it the other way, I feel privileged that I get to share a planet with such amazing animals. Birds are amazing pilots. And what I’m going to talk about now is some of the pilots that I find particularly awe inspiring.
The Peregrine Falcon
Peregrine falcons have the distinction of being the fastest animal on Earth. I have bad travel anxiety so I’m not able to visit other countries, so often times, I have to accept that I will never get to encounter an animal that is “the best” at something, so it’s wonderful that they live right here in Ireland! It was also a bit surprising that my first and so far only sighting of one , pictured here, was on a random building in the city. Something about peregrines makes you think that you’ll encounter them on the extreme mountain of epicness or something, not on a building downtown. But peregrines like high cliffs, it doesn’t matter whether this “cliff” is a naturally occurring one or a human built one like a tall skyscraper. So they’ve found a home in our cities!
How do they achieve their impressive speed? They dive! What must it feel like to fall at the incredible speed of at least 186 miles an hour!
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/peregrine-falcon/
I have encountered people who aren’t impressed by the peregrine’s speed record at all. They say, “Pish posh, the peregrine is merely falling, not flying! Tis no achievement at all! Please tell me a new piece of information that I can be equally unimpressed by!” And my answer to that is, when you are able to dive at 186 miles an hour and survive, let alone get your dinner that way, then you might have a point! Yes, they are exploiting the fact that planet Earth, has gravity and stuff, but aren’t all birds exploiting the characteristics of this planet in order to do their thing? We might as well say that flying isn’t very impressive because the birds are just exploiting the fact that Earth has an atmosphere!
I’m thinking about it now, and I can’t describe how impressed I am that this is how they catch their prey. The fastest I travel typically is on my bike, which is, maybe 15 miles an hour, I’m not sure, and if I had to grab something at this speed, I could totally imagine messing it up. Peregrine falcons manage to kill their prey while traveling at 186 miles an hour, to me this shows not just an amazing athletic ability, but an amazing cognitive ability, the ability to think at incredible speeds.
So, one thing that would trouble me about traveling at this speed, is any debris I encounter at this speed hitting me in the eyeballs. But the peregrine’s got that issue sorted. They have what are called nictitating membranes, that keep debris out of their eyes, while they are diving. This has the affect of making sure they can see clearly during the dive, having really good vision is an important part of their hunting technique. They can spot prey at a distance of a kilometer away!
I’m often saddened by the fact that many birds must kill other animals in order to survive. But, in the case of the peregrine, their lightning fast precision strike means that the birds they catch, often pigeons, experience a quick, painless death. I find it comforting that for the bird who must provide sustenance for the peregrine, it is all over in a split second.
Peregrines have a bone in their nostrils that slows down the airflow at this unbelievable speed, and their hearts beat at more than 600 beats per minute.
During the dive, the peregrine experiences 25 g’s. Most people will lose consciousness at 4 or 5 g’s. Even pilots of military planes such as as the F-16 don’t typically have to endure more than 9 g’s, and while sometimes they might have to endure higher, at that point you are into “Having a really bad time” territory!:
https://simpleflying.com/maximum-fighter-jet-g-force-pilot-survive/
The peregrine falcon is a mighty bird, with an amazingly tough physiology designed for rushing towards their prey at a speed that is simply breathtaking. I wonder what it must feel like, to experience traveling at a speed that no other animal on Earth can ever hope to match. A skilled pilot indeed!
A few weeks ago, while out on the bike, mainly looking for birds to record, I saw this character.
The Kestrel
I didn’t know what bird I was looking at at first, but later I realized that what I was seeing was a kestrel. And, strangely enough, my eyes couldn’t make out what I was seeing, so that I was wondering if what I was seeing was an optical illusion. The kestrel looked like a “glitch” you see sometimes in video games, where due to a fault with the game, a character or object makes a movement completely outside of the physics of the game. And this kestrel seemed to be defying the laws of physics. How were they able to just hover in one place up there? Sure, there’s birds that are able to do that, but I couldn’t figure out how the kestrel was physically achieving this incredible feat.
Funnily enough, it comes about by them exploiting a situation I hate when I encounter it on the bike. There is nothing worse than having to cycle into the wind. I remember in 2021, the wind was pushing against me so strongly that I feared I wouldn’t be able to get home, and had to take a lot more rests than usual. But kestrels actively seek this situation that I despise. They fly into the wind, flying at the same speed that the wind is blowing at, so that it cancels itself out and the kestrel is motionless in the sky. This video talks about it, and incidentally, I’d recommend the A Shot Of Wildlife you tube channel, I’ve learned quite a lot about birds from this channel:
So that’s how kestrels perform their “glitch” in the skies, by flying into the wind. From this motionless position high above, they can scan the ground, on the look out for their next meal. By exploiting the wind they can hover, much like a helicopter.
Yesterday, while at the Lough, which is one of my favourite locations for encountering birds, I was delighted to get some photos of a mute swan landing on the water.
The Mute Swan
These giant birds are so big they need a large space to land on, they must land on the water and then gradually slow down.
Have you ever seen mute swans taking off? Sadly I’ve never gotten clear photos of that, but it’s quite a sight to see. The “engine” switches on, the wing flaps are so loud they remind you a bit of an engine, and, just like with landing, they need a large space in front of them. They flap their wings, and run forward across the water, until they’ve built enough speed and then, lift off!
The aircraft that humans have invented that are capable of vertical take off, helicopters, certain military aircraft, and of course, hot air balloons, tend to be quite light. With the bird world it’s a similar situation, the lighter birds are capable of vertical take off, but the big, heavy birds like mute swans? They need a runway!
Indeed I’ve often wondered why I encounter mute swans at the Lough and along the River Lee, but thus far, never in the Glen River Park. And I think I finally figured it out. The river in the Glen Park has a lot of twists and turns, and is very narrow often times, it doesn’t provide the runway that a mute swan needs.
If you ever see mute swans on a lake or on a river, sticking around to see them take off is well worth it. To see their huge bodies, fighting, and ultimately subduing gravity, is an absolute sight to see. What amazing physiology, that allows a giant animal like a mute swan to take its rightful place in the sky!
So, whether it’s a bird that can survive crushing g forces, a bird that’s able to hover motionless by exploiting a headwind, or a bird that, looks like it should be too big fly, but isn’t, isn’t it amazing to think of what magnificent pilots the bird kingdom has produced!
Ponderings Of An Autist 
One thought on “Amazing Pilots, The Peregrine, The Kestrel And The Mute Swan”