The Life of Birds — S01E02 — The Mastery of Flight

00:00:52 Getting into the air is not easy.

00:02:29 And that takes a lot more energy.

00:04:28 How is it that they can withstand the pull of gravity

00:05:52 Out at sea, the waves deflect the wind upwards in somewhat smaller gusts

00:07:25 To see just how important streamlining is, and how much energy it can save,

00:09:26 So it is the pelicans who give breathtaking displays of synchronized formation flying.

00:11:47 Your stomach drops beneath your feet.

00:13:18 The pressure on the wings is actually bending them, isn't it?

00:15:15 which is nearly always on the ledge of a cliff.

00:16:47 a skeleton with fewer bones than a mammal's, no tail-bone,

00:18:44 It has to comb its plumage with one foot while balancing on its perch with the other.

00:21:49 that some birds are thought to recruit assistants to help in getting rid of them.

00:24:34 owes its success as a hunter to its ability to fly extremely slowly.

00:26:55 The wind has dropped a little. Now, to keep its position relative to the ground

00:29:03 wings which beat in a figure of eight and flick over on the backstroke.

00:30:47 It is doing what a hedgehog does in winter, it is hibernating.

00:32:29 Indeed this moth looks so like a tiny hummingbird

00:34:53 Dickcissels, relatives of the common sparrow,

00:36:58 putting on layers of fat on their upper thighs and their flanks.

00:38:55 They will travel continuously for great lengths of time, both through the day and the night.

00:42:07 They feed intensively, replacing the fat reserves that they have lost.

00:44:18 It still has several hundred miles to go and may travel as far as the Panama border.

00:46:07 How they co-ordinate their flight in these extraordinary concentrations,

00:48:09 Just how they find it, we will be looking at in the next programme in The Life of Birds.