You would have to be a Goose to Try This

["Paul Dodd" <>]

Wow! Quite amazing!

Apparently the geese need to wash off speed and kill lift as they come into
land - and being such heavy birds they can't simply close their wings to
drop then open them to brake as smaller birds do - instead they twist and
turn their bodies keeping their wings open so they don't overly stress them.

There's a video of this behaviour also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSLJ8BHfHDg

As an ex-competition aerobatics pilot, I am fascinated by flight - but one
thing I've never really encountered before is aerobatic flight in birds -
the exception being a Peregrine Falcon executing a pushover manoeuvre from
straight and level flight into a vertical dive. A pushover is a negative-G
manoeuvre, so qualifies as aerobatic flight. Hovering flight is not
aerobatic, since it involves conventional lift, with no "abnormal" pitch,
roll or yaw.

If anyone has other examples, I would be interested.

Paul Dodd
Docklands, Victoria


-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Carl Clifford
Sent: Tuesday, 22 December 2009 10:59 PM
To: Birding-Aus Aus
Subject: You would have to be a Goose to Try This

Dear All,

  I have never regarded Geese as contortionists. I stand corrected.  
See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5353933/Goose-photographed-flying-
upside-down.html


Cheers,

Carl Clifford
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