Bird flight ≈ Bird flightBird flight
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Flapping wing aerodynamics: from insects to vertebrates Open
More than a million insects and approximately 11,000 vertebrates utilize flapping wings to fly. However, flapping flight has only been studied in a few of these species, so many challenges remain in understanding this form of locomotion. F…
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Aerodynamics, sensing and control of insect-scale flapping-wing flight Open
There are nearly a million known species of flying insects and 13 000 species of flying warm-blooded vertebrates, including mammals, birds and bats. While in flight, their wings not only move forward relative to the air, they also flap up …
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The physiological basis of bird flight Open
Flapping flight is energetically more costly than running, although it is less costly to fly a given body mass a given distance per unit time than it is for a similar mass to run the same distance per unit time. This is mainly because bird…
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The biophysics of bird flight: functional relationships integrate aerodynamics, morphology, kinematics, muscles, and sensors Open
Bird flight is a remarkable adaptation that has allowed the approximately 10 000 extant species to colonize all terrestrial habitats on earth including high elevations, polar regions, distant islands, arid deserts, and many others. Birds e…
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Physical limits of flight performance in the heaviest soaring bird Open
Significance Flapping flight is extremely costly for large birds, yet little is known about the conditions that force them to flap. We attached custom-made “flight recorders” to Andean condors, the world’s heaviest soaring birds, documenti…
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How flight feathers stick together to form a continuous morphing wing Open
Wing shapes take flight Birds can dynamically alter the shape of their wings during flight, although how this is accomplished is poorly understood. Matloff et al. found that two mechanisms control the movement of the individual feathers. W…
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Towards the Automatic Classification of Avian Flight Calls for Bioacoustic Monitoring Open
Automatic classification of animal vocalizations has great potential to enhance the monitoring of species movements and behaviors. This is particularly true for monitoring nocturnal bird migration, where automated classification of migrant…
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Birds can transition between stable and unstable states via wing morphing Open
Birds morph their wing shape to accomplish extraordinary manoeuvres 1–4 , which are governed by avian-specific equations of motion. Solving these equations requires information about a bird’s aerodynamic and inertial characteristics 5 . Av…
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Flap or soar? How a flight generalist responds to its aerial environment Open
The aerial environment is heterogeneous in space and time and directly influences the costs of animal flight. Volant animals can reduce these costs by using different flight modes, each with their own benefits and constraints. However, the…
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Flight mechanics and control of escape manoeuvres in hummingbirds I. Flight kinematics Open
Hummingbirds are nature‘s masters of aerobatic manoeuvres. Previous research shows hummingbirds and insects converged evolutionarily upon similar aerodynamic mechanisms and kinematics in hovering. Herein, we use three-dimensional kinematic…
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Use of multiple modes of flight subsidy by a soaring terrestrial bird, the golden eagle<i>Aquila chrysaetos</i>, when on migration Open
Large birds regularly use updrafts to subsidize flight. Although most research on soaring bird flight has focused on use of thermal updrafts, there is evidence suggesting that many species are likely to use multiple modes of subsidy. We te…
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The Strategy to Survive Primary Malaria Infection: An Experimental Study on Behavioural Changes in Parasitized Birds Open
Avian malaria parasites (Haemosporida, Plasmodium) are of cosmopolitan distribution, and they have a significant impact on vertebrate host fitness. Experimental studies show that high parasitemia often develops during primary malaria infec…
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Falling with Style: Bats Perform Complex Aerial Rotations by Adjusting Wing Inertia Open
The remarkable maneuverability of flying animals results from precise movements of their highly specialized wings. Bats have evolved an impressive capacity to control their flight, in large part due to their ability to modulate wing shape,…
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The wings before the bird: an evaluation of flapping-based locomotory hypotheses in bird antecedents Open
Background: Powered flight is implicated as a major driver for the success of birds. Here we examine the effectiveness of three hypothesized pathways for the evolution of the flight stroke, the forelimb motion that powers aerial locomotion…
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Sex‐specific effects of wind on the flight decisions of a sexually dimorphic soaring bird Open
In a highly dynamic airspace, flying animals are predicted to adjust foraging behaviour to variable wind conditions to minimize movement costs. Sexual size dimorphism is widespread in wild animal populations, and for large soaring birds wh…
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Energy Expenditure and Metabolic Changes of Free-Flying Migrating Northern Bald Ibis Open
Many migrating birds undertake extraordinary long flights. How birds are able to perform such endurance flights of over 100-hour durations is still poorly understood. We examined energy expenditure and physiological changes in Northern Bal…
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Gadfly petrels use knowledge of the windscape, not memorized foraging patches, to optimize foraging trips on ocean-wide scales Open
Seabirds must often travel vast distances to exploit heterogeneously distributed oceanic resources, but how routes and destinations of foraging trips are optimized remains poorly understood. Among the seabirds, gadfly petrels ( Pterodroma …
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Scaling of bird wings and feathers for efficient flight Open
Why and how do birds as small as a hummingbird and as large as a condor fly? Research reveals new secrets.
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Flapping before Flight: High Resolution, Three-Dimensional Skeletal Kinematics of Wings and Legs during Avian Development Open
Some of the greatest transformations in vertebrate history involve developmental and evolutionary origins of avian flight. Flight is the most power-demanding mode of locomotion, and volant adult birds have many anatomical features that pre…
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Multiple-stage decisions in a marine central-place forager Open
Air-breathing marine animals face a complex set of physical challenges associated with diving that affect the decisions of how to optimize feeding. Baleen whales (Mysticeti) have evolved bulk-filter feeding mechanisms to efficiently feed o…
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Dynamics and flight control of a flapping-wing robotic insect in the presence of wind gusts Open
With the goal of operating a biologically inspired robot autonomously outside of laboratory conditions, in this paper, we simulated wind disturbances in a laboratory setting and investigated the effects of gusts on the flight dynamics of a…
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Modelling flight heights of lesser black‐backed gulls and great skuas from<span>GPS</span>: a Bayesian approach Open
Summary Wind energy generation is increasing globally, and associated environmental impacts must be considered. The risk of seabirds colliding with offshore wind turbines is influenced by flight height, and flight height data usually come …
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Hummingbird flight stability and control in freestream turbulent winds Open
Airflow conditions close to the Earth's surface are often complex, posing challenges to flight stability and control for volant taxa. Relatively little is known about how well flying animals can contend with complex, adverse air flows, or …
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The evolution of avian wing shape and previously unrecognized trends in covert feathering Open
Avian wing shape has been related to flight performance, migration, foraging behaviour and display. Historically, linear measurements of the feathered aerofoil and skeletal proportions have been used to describe this shape. While the distr…
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Kinematics and aerodynamics of avian upstrokes during slow flight Open
Slow flight is extremely energetically costly per unit time, yet highly important for takeoff and survival. However, at slow speeds it is presently thought that most birds do not produce beneficial aerodynamic forces during the entire wing…
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Reconstructing bird trajectories from pressure and wind data using a highly optimized hidden Markov model Open
Tracking technologies have widely expanded our understanding of bird migration routes, destinations and underlying strategies. However, determining the entire trajectory of small birds equipped with lightweight geolocators remains a challe…
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Using High-Resolution GPS Tracking Data of Bird Flight for Meteorological Observations Open
Bird flight is strongly influenced by local meteorological conditions. With increasing amounts of high-frequency GPS data of bird movement becoming available, as tags become cheaper and lighter, opportunities are created to obtain large da…
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Combined use of tri-axial accelerometers and GPS reveals the flexible foraging strategy of a bird in relation to weather conditions Open
Tri-axial accelerometry has proved to be a useful technique to study animal behavior with little direct observation, and also an effective way to measure energy expenditure, allowing a refreshing revisit to optimal foraging theory. This th…
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Automated monitoring for birds in flight: Proof of concept with eagles at a wind power facility Open
Automated surveys for wildlife have the potential to improve data collection while averting mortality of animals. Collisions of eagles at wind power facilities are particularly of concern and therefore an automated system that could detect…
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The aerodynamics of flight in an insect flight-mill Open
Predicting the dispersal of pest insects is important for pest management schemes. Flight-mills provide a simple way to evaluate the flight potential of insects, but there are several complications in relating tethered-flight to natural fl…