Most ground living flying birds jump up as a start to each flight. Many
ducks do too. Some perching birds do also. Sure that is not very dramatic
and that is up to you whether you call that "a noticeable capacity". Many
years ago when I kept finches and quails I confined the father King Quail to
a wooden cage when he was being aggressive to new chicks. That proved his
doom when my father came around the corner and looked at him closely and he
got frightened and jumped up and either broke his neck or smashed his head
on the wooden roof of the cage and died in a shaking mess almost instantly.
That tells me that King Quails are capable of very powerful jumps. I suspect
that is a common thing of things like quail, and consistent with the way
they fly off so quickly in the wild. After that I padded the roof of the
cage.
Philip
> -----Original Message----- From: Laurie Knight
> Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 6:03 PM
> To: Birding Aus
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Young ducks can jump
>
> As I was wandering through the Roma Street Parklands (close to the
> Brisbane CBD) I came across a family of Pacific Black Ducks in an
> artificial rainforest gully - there is a concrete cascade with a 30 cm
> vertical jump ups. There were some week old ducklings in the cascade
> section. One was at the bottom, while its siblings were in the upper
> section. From a standing start, the duckling leapt up the 30 cm to
> the next level.
>
> Leaping up is not an activity you see often from birds. Flying yes.
> Walking yes. Running yes. Jumping down yes. Leaping up? I've seen
> footage of penguins "jumping" out of the water onto the ice (from a
> swimming start), and I've seen ducks hopping out of the water, but
> I've never seen a bird jump up three times its body length.
>
> I doubt there would be many people who could jump onto a ledge above
> their body height and land on their feet from a standing start without
> using their hands. (The people who jump up more than their height
> have a run up and they don't land on their feet. People who jump
> three times their height are using a long pole to lever themselves
> up).
>
> Are there any birds that have a noticeable capacity to jump up?
>
> Regards, Laurie.
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