Young ducks can jump

[Laurie Knight <>]

Good point.  I guess it is a bit like the catapults on the aircraft  
carriers, or submarine launched missiles.
It would be interesting to see high speed movie footage of a quail  
taking to flight - how far does it jump up before its wings take over?
Regards, Laurie.

On 21/12/2013, at 9:34 PM, Philip Veerman wrote:

> 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.