birding-aus

Parrots in Flight. Who's Fastest?

To: Martin Butterfield <>
Subject: Parrots in Flight. Who's Fastest?
From: "Donald G. Kimball" <>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2016 23:29:11 +0000
Having spent time filming them on Bruny Island I can attest to their flight
being amazingly rapid.  They arent that large overall so I wonder if part
of it is their small streamlined body shape.  I wonder how the Polytelis
genus would do in a full on race over lets say 10 KM.  Those powerful wings
and long tail as a rudder seem to make them super fast.  But then maybe its
just like a guy rooting for his favorite team and I am mentally cheering
them on without a good scientific study.

On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 11:38 PM, Martin Butterfield <>
wrote:

> This thread has re-entered my thinking today after watching the Swift
> Parrots that have appeared in Hackett ACT over the past few days.
>
> For some reason they seem to be targeted by all the resident parrots
> (Australian Kin-Parrot, Eastern and Crimson Rosellas) and Noisy Miners.
> The Swities seem able to out accelerate all the other species without
> really trying and sustain whatever speed they needed to stay in front.
>
> On a couple of occasions they were doing this towards me at head height and
> their speed was very obvious.  They didn't seem to have that much concern
> about nearby objects and on a couple of occasions I thought I was going to
> have to seek professional help to remove a parrot from my nose
>
> Martin Butterfield
> http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
>
> On 25 February 2016 at 11:20, Mick Roderick <> wrote:
>
> > Swift Parrots have often been called the "fasting flying parrot in the
> > world" or "world's fastest parrot" in the media, e.g.:
> >
> https://gorcc.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/worlds-swiftest-parrot-visits-coast/
> > I have no idea where the claims come from though.
> > HANZAB describes the flight as "exceedingly fast". Indeed, this can be to
> > their undoing at times....
> > Mick
> >
> >
> >
> >
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