RE: Flight Speeds & Daily Movement

["Conole, Lawrie" <>]

Hello Linda

I do from time to time try and estimate the speed of birds travelling in
the same direction as the car.  Unfortunately I never record the
results!  The only one I can recall was an Australian Hobby which I
clocked at 80 km/h in level commuting flight over farmland.  This was
near Geelong a couple of months ago.  Common Bronzewings can do about 60
km/h in front of the car; maybe they'd not be in such a hurry if it
wasn't for being "pursued" by the car.

>From my research on the ecomorphology of microbats (insectivorous bats)
I know it's possible to predict flight speed from morphology,
particularly of wing morphology.  Are there not any similar formulae for
birds?

Cheers -- Lawrie

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