Which bird soars

Thank you for subscribing to our Daily News Capsule newsletter. Whatsapp Twitter Facebook Linkedin. Sign Up. Edit Profile. Subscribe Now. They can soar for long stretches withoutflapping their wings.

Their soaring ability lets them huntfor prey while circling over open areas. They will perch on treesand utility poles and wait for unsuspecting prey to movebelow. Bill Monecke Explainer. Can birds fly forever? Plenty of birds fly vast distances on theirmigratory trips around planet Earth.

But the most amazing of allmight be the frigate bird , which can stay aloft fortwo months straight without landing or resting. The scientistsattached those lightweight satellite transmitters to the nape ofthe birds ' necks. Yurema Narru-Larru Explainer. Why do eagles fly alone? First of all, eagles are known for their sturdyvision and their shrill focus.

History has it that the eagle has the sharpest vision of all birds. Eagles fly high alone at great altitude and not with any other smallbirds. Biviana Huebertz Pundit. Are there birds that look like bald eagles? Red-tailed Hawk. Anne Kocsis Pundit. Do birds fly glide? Gliding birds move exactly the way paperairplanes do , slowly losing altitude. So as migrating birds glide , they seek out another thermal to gain altitudeagain.

Soaring birds that wish to stay aloft withoutflapping in normal wind usually fly INTO the wind forlift. Marley Goxendi Pundit. How do birds hover in the air? A hovering hummer keeps its body at about a 45degree angle to the ground and moves its wings in more or less afigure-eight pattern, with the "eight" lying on its side.

In eachstroke the bird is able to make use of some of the energytransferred into the motion of air on the previous sweep ofits wings. This helps vultures to circle perpetually in thermals, maintaining thrust by gliding downward, but staying aloft by sinking at a rate slower than the hot air is rising.

It has been possible to measure a vulture's rate of sink by flying in aircraft in close formation with them. Turkey Vultures have a minimum sink rate of 2 feet per second, while Black Vultures have a minimum rate of 2. Black Vultures, therefore, need stronger thermals than Turkey Vultures, which helps to explain why they are restricted to the southern United States while Turkey Vultures can penetrate the relatively cool climes of southern Canada. Albatrosses and other seabirds such as shearwaters and petrels also soar.

But their techniques are different from those of vultures. Albatrosses have long, slender wings with a high aspect ratio.

The different strategies made their migration speed significantly different: about 24 miles per hour during the spring, and 20 miles per hour in the fall. For many birds on this list, soaring is a largely passive activity. They travel in a general direction, guided largely by wind currents, and keep their eyes open for food to scavenge or prey that's relatively easy to catch.

Golden Eagles, though, engage in more complex activities while soaring. They hunt small and medium-size mammals. They stake out and defend territories of around 6, acres. They even play fetch with themselves.

That complexity in behavior sets them apart from other large soaring species like vultures and condors, says Todd Katzner. Katzner studies a small Golden Eagle population that migrates and winters along the Appalachian Mountains. These birds have had to diversify the types of air currents they use to stay in the air.

When migrating , they soar in thermals for about 41 percent of their flight time, glide between thermals about 45 percent of the time, and soar using orographic updraft, just like Andean Condors, about 13 percent of the time. Turkey Vultures are different from other vultures throughout the world.

Most vulture species rely heavily on soaring and gliding through the air at very high altitudes up to 37, feet , says Katzner, and they rely heavily on sharp vision to see the carcasses of dead animals from such a height. But Turkey Vultures have adapted to fly at lower altitudes to sniff the best pieces of carrion. In fact, they have one of the best smelling systems of all birds. In , after comparing them with other 32 species, a team of researchers proved that Turkey Vultures has more mitral cells, which transmit information about odors to the brain, than any of the other measured species.

This allows them to stay closer to the ground compared to other carrion eaters, like Black Vultures in North America, giving them an advantage. They can also rock side-to-side while flying to counteract the wind forces in turbulent scenarios, which allows them to have a lot of control and stability in their flight. White Storks spend more time flapping than the other birds on this list: It takes up about 17 percent of their flight time, which is still significantly less than most bird species.

What makes them fascinating, says Hannah Williams, is how their social interactions shape the amount of soaring, gliding, and flapping of each bird. After following a group of 27 White Storks for four years, researchers found that, when migrating, the lead bird has a more irregular flight pattern than the rest of the flock following behind.